


From the makers of the Avengers

by DoctorWhoGirl



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BAMF Phil Coulson, But it's all for the good of the crossover!, Crossover, Gen, Not even SHIELD knows everything, Slight Cannon divergence, Spiderman comes to MCU!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-02-11 03:19:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 31,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2051649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorWhoGirl/pseuds/DoctorWhoGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spiderman is written into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. How Marc Webb's 'The Amazing Spiderman' might have gone had it been set in the MCU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prolouge

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own anything from the Marvel Universe or Spiderman. If I did I would have be much richer. I'm just borrowing these guys for a while.

Agent Phil Coulson of SHIELD surveyed the alleyway distastefully. He had been a member of the agency for longer than he cared to admit, and he had liked to think that his suspension of disbelief was quite a bit better than average. 

In the last few years, however, his holy shit quotient had increased tenfold. Billionaire geniuses in suits of armour that by all rights belonged in a sci-fi movie. Rage monsters and Norse Gods and magic. Oh, and Captain America. 

Coulson rather suspected he’d been given this assignment at least partially to distract him from the recent recovery of the super soldier. He wasn’t entirely sure if he was miffed or relived; he wasn’t entirely sure he would be able to retain his professionalism if he was introduced to Steve Rogers without warning. 

But this; this had to be the most surreal assignment he had ever been sent upon. Sighing, he slipped under the police line that cordoned off the rest of the alleyway and headed towards the police officer waiting for him at the end. 

Coulson hated working with the local authorities at the best of times- half the information was literally worth more than their lives, and the police, rather understandably in his opinion, did not appreciate the Men in Black implying they weren't good enough at their jobs to handle things. Liaisons could be tense at the best of times. 

But officers like Captain George Stacy; they were the worst to deal with. He had met Captain Stacy only once, when SHIELD first took an interest in his hunt for the vigilante in question. Coulson’s highly trained eye told him more about the Captain than one would think possible from such a short meeting, but the thing that stood out was his devotion to the job, to his city. Everything he did was done because he genuinely believed it was the best way to protect his city. 

Cops like this; good cops- good people- no matter how well his training masked it, Coulson could never stop the squirm of his guts when he lies to these people. Sure, it was for their protection, but these were people not so different from him, those who wanted to protect innocent lives by any means necessary. And he had to stop them from doing their job. 

But Phil Coulson wasn’t SHIELD’s finest for nothing. He plastered on a smile, grasping Captain Stacy’s hand and shaking it. If this was what it took to protect people, then so be it. 

“Captain Stacy. It’s good to see you again.”

“Wish I could say the same. Seems every time you people come along it’s to clear the proverbial from the fan” Stacy responded wirily. 

“Trust me, you’d be surprised how many police chiefs choose not to call us in and clean up the proverbial themselves. Thank you for letting us do our jobs” Coulson responded sincerely. He’d seen a lot of people die due to reluctance to trust SHIELD, so he had been pleasantly surprised when Captain Stacy had called them in at the next sighting as agreed. 

Captain Stacy gestured for him to follow, leading him down to the end of the alleyway, saying as he walked “Look, I don’t pretend to know why the hell you’re guys are so interested in a criminal in a stupid costume, but if you’re offering us extra resources in catching him then I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Coulson could at least offer him an explanation for that, albeit a ridiculously simplified one. “We believe he’s using stolen technology to aid him in his vigilantism. This technology is highly sensitive, to say the least.”

They had reached the end of the alley way. Coulson took in the spectacle before him, lowering his sunglasses in order to get a proper look. Sure, he had seen the photographs of the previous incidents, but to see it in person…

Captain Stacy watched him with a smirk, arms folded. “You’re telling me. I don’t know whether to be terrified or impressed.”

“Both. Both is good.” Coulson responded. 

Sighing, he turned to one of the two agents that had silently followed him down the alleyway. “I think we’re going to need some equipment down here. I want him cut down and questioned”

He gestured to the sight in front of him. The features of the man dangling in the alleyway were obscured by his hood, but he knew without looking he would be a white male with long blonde hair. Really though, the man himself was irrelevant. What they wanted was the description of his assailant. 

The assailant that had left him dangling in a giant spider web that covered the entire alley wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnd were off! This is my first time attempting fanfic so any constructive feedback would be most appreciated. Just to clarify, this is set between 'Captain America: The First Avenger' and 'The Avengers'. The prologue is what I imagine the post credit scene for Captain America would have looked like if Spidey came straight after. Next up will be the actual film.


	2. Ready or not...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own anything from the Marvel Universe or Spiderman. If I did I would have be much richer. I'm just borrowing these guys for a while.

“Ready or not, here I come!”

Peter removed his hands from his eyes and crept forward. He was tempted to run straight in to the sitting room, but Daddy was good at hiding. The last time he’d played hide and seek with Daddy he’d run straight past him in giddy excitement.

Peter didn’t get the chance to play with Daddy too often, but that was okay. Daddy worked a lot; at one of the big glass towers in the city, and Mommy said he was going to save lots of people one day. Peter didn’t mind so much if Daddy was busy, he had Mommy to play with and Uncle Ben and Aunt May when they came to visit. Besides, when Daddy was home he was the best at playing games ever. 

Like now. Peter had reached the living room, and he had spotted Daddy’s shoes sticking out from under the curtain. Smiling, he pulled the curtain open… only to see a broomstick propped up in front of Daddy’s shoes, giving the appearance of a person hiding behind it. 

Peter smiled inwardly. He loved hide and seek, and Daddy was the best grown up he’d ever met at hiding. He wasn’t so good at finding, but that was okay too. It meant Peter got to play with his Daddy even longer. 

He tried the closet, but there was nobody there. He got distracted when he reached the table in the hall. Daddy had left the glasses he normally wore on the table in front of the photographs. Peter picked them up and placed them on his own face, blinking owlishly as the hall suddenly turned blurry. How could these make Daddy see better? 

Daddy and Uncle Ben both wore glasses, and so had Grandpa before he had gone to heaven when Peter was three. Daddy said all the men in his family had needed them, and Mommy had tutted and said that if he had given Peter his bad eyesight then his family would be paying for his glasses, but she had been smiling when she said it which meant she wasn’t really mad. 

Peter wanted to wear glasses. Uncle Ben said he would look just like Daddy with glasses on, and Peter wanted to be just like his Daddy. But only big boys needed glasses, which must be why everything looked so funny with them on. Peter was four and a half now, very nearly old enough to start kindergarten, so he was very nearly a big boy. That meant he’d get to wear them soon. 

Peter placed the glasses back on the table. He didn’t really want to go to kindergarten. Daddy didn’t always work in the day, sometimes he had to go in the evenings, so there might not be time for hide and seek if he was at kindergarten all day. Besides, he already knew the alphabet and how to make words, and he could count all the way up to 100. Mommy said he was going to be really clever just like his Daddy. Maybe he could go to work with Daddy instead? That way Peter could save lives to, and he’d get to be with Daddy all day. Much better than some stupid Kindergarten. 

Peter made his way to Daddy’s office. He wasn’t normally allowed inside because Daddy didn’t like to be disturbed when he was working, but this was hide and seek, so it was okay to look anywhere. 

He pushed the big wooden door open before stopping dead in his tracks. Daddy usually kept his office tidy and didn’t let anyone move his stuff around. But it was a mess. Papers were scattered all over the floor and every draw had been opened. The big wooden chair Daddy sometimes let Peter sit in whilst he worked had been knocked over. The window was open and blowing about in the wind, letting the rain blow into the office. 

“Daddy?” Peter called out. Angie Reed across the road had had a burglar come through an open window and they’d taken her TV. The messed up office made Peter’s tummy squirm in a horrible, wrong feeling kind of way. He didn’t care about hide and seek anymore, he wanted Mommy or Daddy. They would know how to fix it. 

“Dad? Dad!” he shouted. 

Daddy came running at the sound of Peter’s shout, before freezing at the sight of his office. Suddenly he sprung forward, lifting Peter up and placing him away from the window, before shutting the curtains without even closing the window first. 

He pulled one of the draws right out of the desk, which surprised Peter because you were never ever supposed to pull furniture apart like that, even if you could put it back together again. Daddy looked at him before jamming a pencil into the top of the draw, the bottom sliding away to reveal a secret compartment. 

Peter just glimpsed Daddy pulling a file out before Mommy picked him up, turning around so he couldn’t see Daddy anymore. She carried him out of the room, Daddy following close behind. 

Peter wondered if he’d done something wrong. Maybe Mommy and Daddy thought he’d made the mess in the office? But when he messed up his room Mommy and Daddy didn’t act like this, they just made him clean it up. 

His confusion mounted as they placed him in the back seat of the car. “Where are we going?” he asked. 

Mommy and Daddy looked at each other before Mommy answered. “We’re going to see your Aunt May and Uncle Ben” she said. “Everything’s going to be okay, sweetie.”

Peter was even more confused now. At least he wasn’t in trouble; he liked going to Uncle Ben and Aunt May’s house, he wouldn’t be going if he was in trouble. Mommy was smiling to, which meant everything was okay. So why did she need to tell him things would be okay? And why where they going on a car trip right before bedtime?

Peter suddenly felt drowsy, as if he had conjured sleep by thinking of bedtime. He wasn’t in bed, but it would be okay if he closed his eyes, right? He wasn’t really sleeping, just resting… 

 

Mary Parker turned round to check on her son at least once per minute. By minute three he was drifting. By minute five he was out for the count. She sighed. On one level she was pleased he wouldn’t have to witness her obvious panic. Another part of her wanted to shake him awake and hold him in her arms, to make every precious second with her boy count. 

Richard turned to her, clearly seeing her distress. “You don’t have to do this you know. You could stay with him. Ben and May would be glad to have you”

She gave herself a single second to imagine getting to see her boy grow into a man, to have all that time, before responding “We talked about this. I won’t leave you.”

Richard lowered his head minutely, face screwed up in guilt. “I’m sorry, Mary. Both of you deserve better than this; a moonlight flit because of some freaking formula.”

“It’s not your fault” she said.

Her husband snorted. “Really? You think I didn’t realised what I was getting into, Mary? I knew what kind of a man Norman Osborn was, but I was blinded. I told myself I wanted to help people, to help Curt, but honestly; I wanted the glory. When I developed those spiders I was composing the Nobel Prize acceptance speech in my head. Now look at me; I’ve lost my boy because of this. I’ve taken him away from you.”

Mary shook her head. “No” she said fiercely. “No. You think I’m some meek little wifey following her husband because of some warped sense of duty? I choose this; I chose to follow you. Let me tell you something Richard Parker; if I blamed you for this mess I’d be long gone by now, Peter as well. You are a good man. Sure you wanted some credit, who wouldn’t? But you didn’t start out for the glory, you started out because you and your best friend were on a crusade to make the world a better place. It’s Oscorp and Norman Osborn who’ve twisted that into something dark and dirty. You are doing the right thing, and I want to do the right thing with you. I want my little boy to live in a better world, and that world has nothing this powerful in the hands of Norman Osborn.”

She stopped, breathless from her spontaneous tirade. When her husband turned to look at her his eyes were suspiciously shiny. “You know if I wasn’t driving I’d have kissed you already?” he asked. 

“Of course. If you weren't driving you’d be in trouble for not kissing me after that speech mister”

He actually laughed at that. Given the situation, Mary guessed she would be able to count the number of times her husband laughed in the immediate future on one hand. 

“I love you so much Mary Parker.”

“I love you to, Richard.”

 

Peter hadn’t known what to expect when he had reached Uncle Ben and Aunt May’s house. Would they go home for bed after they’re impromptu visit?

Apparently not. “You’re going to stay with Aunt May and Uncle Ben for a little while” Daddy told him. 

Peter had stayed the night here before, but always with Mommy and Daddy sleeping next door. “I wanna go with you” he told Daddy. 

Daddy didn’t answer, just pulled him forward and kissed his forehead, before pulling him into a tight hug. 

The second Daddy put him down Mommy rushed forward. She hugged him for a long time, issuing instructions to Aunt May all the while. “He doesn't like crusts on his sandwiches, and he likes to sleep with a little light on at night… 

Her voice wavered, and Daddy had to pull her up, moving her gently towards the door. 

Suddenly, Peter was struck with the strangest wrong feeling he had ever had; he had to stop Mommy and Daddy leaving. He moved forward, clinging to his father’s hand. 

“Dad…” was all he managed to get out, before he realised that you couldn’t put a wrong feeling into words that would make sense to a grown up. Daddy looked sad, like he knew all about the wrong feeling but couldn’t fix it. 

“Be good” he told Peter. 

The door shut behind him, and Peter watched his farther go through the glass with Aunt May’s arms around him until his parents vanished from sight. 

It would be okay, Peter told himself. Mommy and Daddy would be back tomorrow and everything would go back to normal. 

But even as he thought this, four year old Peter Parker couldn’t shake the sense he couldn’t yet put a word to. Like he’d just finished a really good story and no matter how many times he read it again it would never be new and surprising like before. A sense of finality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was a grim start. This is were the film kicks off to adult Peter, but next up we'll be seeing more of four year old Peter.


	3. ... Here it comes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own anything from the Marvel Universe or Spiderman. If I did I would have be much richer. I'm just borrowing these guys for a while.

Peter’s been staying with Aunt May and Uncle Ben for three days now. 

On day one, Peter refused to take off his shoes. Mommy always wanted him to have his shoes on ready to leave when he went to play with Harry and he didn’t want her to be disappointed when she came back. He fell asleep on the staircase waiting for Mommy and Daddy to come and get him like they promised. Aunt May slipped his shoes off as he slept and Uncle Ben carried him up to bed. 

On day two Uncle Ben takes him to the park. Normally Peter likes the park, but today he’s afraid he’ll miss Mommy and Daddy. But Uncle Ben convinces him that his parents won’t leave without him, so Peter goes on the swing set and Uncle Ben pushes him higher and higher, much higher than Mommy or Daddy would let him go. When he gets back Aunt May makes him a sandwich with no crusts, just like Mommy said to. They let him stay up an extra hour and as Peter falls asleep that night he thinks that maybe staying with Uncle Ben and Aunt May for a little while longer would be okay. 

On the third day the police lady shows up. She looks at Peter with big sad eyes like Mommy and Daddy did when they left and asks if she can speak to Aunt May and Uncle Ben alone. They go into the kitchen and leave Peter on the sofa. He can’t hear what they're saying but he sees Aunt May start to cry. Uncle Ben puts his arm around her and he’s crying to. Peter’s never seen his Uncle Ben cry before. 

When they come to get him, they’ve stopped crying. He sits on Aunt May’s lap with Uncle Ben next to him as the police lady tells him that Mommy and Daddy aren’t coming back for him. 

Peter shakes his head. He knows that the police lady is wrong, because Daddy said he’d be back in a few days and Daddy’s never ever wrong. Daddy’s the smartest man he knows, and Mommy never lies to him.

He tells the police lady this, and Aunt May starts to cry again. The police lady says she’s sorry, that his Mommy and Daddy are in heaven, like Grandpa, and that it was an accident and they never meant to leave him. 

Peter still doesn't believe her. He’s taken to his room whilst the police lady finishes talking to Aunt May and Uncle Ben and he falls asleep. He dreams that he’s walking in the park with Mommy and Daddy. They walk in front of him hand in hand and Peter walks behind. Only when he turns the corner they are nowhere to be found, and no matter how fast he runs, how many corners he turns, he still can’t catch up with them, can’t even see them. 

When Peter wakes up on day four, his parents are still nowhere to be found. 

Uncle Ben comes upstairs when he hears the crashes. He finds Peter throwing everything he can lay his hands on in every direction. When Uncle Ben grabs his arms Peter thinks he’s going to get yelled at for smashing Uncle Ben’s things, but instead he just hugs him and doesn't let go. 

On day five, Peter doesn't come downstairs for breakfast. When Aunt May comes to check on him she finds him under the bed, crying more tears than any four year old body should be able to hold. She coxes him out after another half an hour of crying. She makes him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and when Peter see’s the crusts cut off he thinks how Mommy made sure Aunt May knew he liked his sandwiches like that. Then he thinks how Mommy will never cut the crusts off his sandwiches again and he cries some more. Aunt May hugs him and tells him how Mommy and Daddy are keeping watch over him. 

Peter doesn't want Mommy and Daddy watching over him. He wants them here, working and cooking and talking and laughing. He wouldn’t mind if Daddy had to work every second of every day forever, as long as he was here. 

On day six, Peter finds his clothes and toys and books in the guest bedroom. He asks Aunt May if he’ll have to go to a children's home like the kids on TV without parents. She shakes her head so hard he thinks it will fall of her shoulders, and tells him he’s going to live with her and Uncle Ben. 

Peter remembers the park and sandwiches without crusts, the way Uncle Ben didn’t get mad when he smashed stuff and the way they both held him when he cried. If he really, really couldn’t have Mommy and Daddy, living with Aunt May and Uncle Ben wouldn’t be so bad.

On day fifteen, there’s the funeral. 

Peters seen funerals on TV, but never been to one in real life. On TV it’s always raining, but when they bury Peter’s Mommy and Daddy it’s warm and sunny. People tug at their shirt collars whilst the vicar talks about Mary and Richard, and it takes Peter a second to realise he means Mommy and Daddy. When he sees the coffins going into the ground together he tells Uncle Ben that Mommy and Daddy should have a nightlight with them so they won’t be scared in the deep dark ground. 

Afterwards, lots of grown-ups come to Uncle Ben and Aunt May’s house, which is Peter’s house to now. They drink a lot of tea and talk and cry, and Peter gets hugged by a lot of grown-ups he doesn't really know who all say how sorry they are and how wonderful Mommy and Daddy were. 

On day seventeen, Peter is watching a cartoon on TV about a cat and a mouse. The mouse drops a brick on the cat’s tail, and it’s funny. Peter laughs, before he remembers he’s not supposed to be happy. But it does feel good to laugh again. By the end of the cartoon, Peter has laughed exactly six times, and he’s decided that that’s okay. 

On day twenty, Uncle Ben returns from the hardware store with buckets and buckets of red paint, Peter’s favourite colour. By the time they’ve finished painting the guest bedroom Peter’s shirt is ruined, and it’s not the guest bedroom anymore, it’s Peters room. When he falls asleep that night he doesn't feel like a guest anymore. 

 

On day twenty four, the man shows up. 

The man has blonde hair and wears a black suit. Peter doesn't like black suits, that’s what all the grown-ups wore when they put Mommy and Daddy in the ground. The man talks to Uncle Ben first. Then Aunt May. Then he asks to talk to Peter. Aunt May and Uncle Ben don’t want him to, then they want to sit with him, but the man insists he wants to talk to Peter alone. 

The man takes Peter up to his room and shuts the door whilst Aunt May and Uncle Ben wait outside. He sits down on Peters’ bed and pats the cover, inviting Peter to sit next to him. Peter’s not sure he wants to sit next to the strange man, but he doesn't know how to say so without being rude, so he sits down. 

The man offers him a chocolate bar, and Peter decides he maybe likes him a little. As Peter is eating the chocolate, the man talks. 

“Hey buddy, I just need to ask you a few questions.”

Peter frowns. “Why?” he asks. 

“I work for a company called the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. We’re trying to find out what happened to your parents”

Peter isn’t sure he wants to talk about Mommy and Daddy, so he just says “That’s a stupid name for a company. It’s too long.”

The man smiles. Not a real smile though, the kind where you smile with your teeth but not your eyes. “So we’ve been told. But either way, we have to ask you a few questions about Mommy and Daddy. You look like a sensible boy, so you won’t mind helping me, will you?”

Peter shakes his head reluctantly. He does mind helping, but Mommy and Daddy always told him he had to be a sensible boy. “Mommy and Daddy died on a plane crash. It was an accident.”

“Right” the man said after a pause. “Of course. What we wanted to ask you, Peter, is if Mommy and Daddy gave you anything… unusual, to look after. Something you wouldn’t normally need when you visited your Aunt and Uncle.”

Peter frowns. The only think Mommy and Daddy took was his PJ’s, and they weren’t strange, where they?

He shook his head. The man didn’t look convinced. “Did they give anything to Aunt May or Uncle Ben?”

Peter shook his head again. The man looked annoyed, like he’d given the wrong answer somehow. But that was silly; he’d told the truth, how could he be wrong. 

“Peter, did you ever go in your Daddy’s office?” the man asked. Peter nodded, and the man smiled like he’d finally been given the correct answer. 

“Did you ever see a file that he put in a strange place? Not in a filing cabinet or a draw, somewhere a file shouldn’t normally go? Like a secret place?”

Peter thought for a moment. There had been the file Daddy had taken the last time he had seen him… but that had been in the draw, under the wood. The man didn’t want to know about that. He shook his head once again. 

The man sighed. “Well, never mind. Thank you very much for your help Peter. You’ve been a very helpful little boy.” The man rose from the bed and turned to the door. 

“Mister? Why do you want to know all this” Peter asked.

The man paused, before asking “Do you know what you’re Daddy’s job was, Peter?”

Peter nodded enthusiastically. “He worked at the big glass tower in the city. Mommy said he was going to save lives.”

The man nodded. “Yes he was. Only now, his research has been… misplaced. We want to find it so we can finish what you’re Daddy started, Peter.”

The man exited the room. After he had gone, Peter lay in bed thinking about his Daddies research. He hoped the man from the company with the stupid long name found it. That way, there would still be a bit of his Daddy, even if he would never get to play hide and seek with him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aww, I'm going to miss writing for little Peter. These last two chapters just wrote themselves. However, next time will see seventeen year old Peter. Just as a general warning, I go on holiday tomorrow and it's not guaranteed the place I'm staying will have internet connection. If it does, posting will continue. If not, do not panic if nothing happens for a week. The fic is not dead and I will keep writing whilst on holiday, so I should have something quite substantial to post when I get back. Thanks for the comments, keep em' coming!


	4. Remember this?

_Thirteen years later:_

“I’m back!”

Peter Parker walked into the kitchen where Aunt May was chopping away at ingredients for dinner. She smiled at him briefly before turning her attention back to the chopping board.

“I’m making spaghetti and meatballs tonight” she said, her response to spotting him heading for the fridge.

Peter sighed. Sure, Aunt May’s cooking was awesome, but it sure wasn’t fast. He opened the fridge anyway, settling for grabbing a bottle of soda instead of the food he had wanted originally.

Aunt May tutted at him. “Since when don’t you like spaghetti and meatballs?” she said mock sternly, knowing full well what he had meant. They had had many a discussion on the merits of microwave cooking, i.e.: the fact the food materialised before the streetlights were turned on, but Peter knew full well it was a debate he had no hope of winning.

Aunt May looked at him properly for the first time, gasping. “Oh my God, what happened to your face?” she asked.

Crap. So it was noticeable then. Peter resisted the urge to massage the swelling on his lip, knowing it would only make Aunt May worry more. “It’s fine. I fell skating.” He explained.

Technically, it was only half a lie. He had fallen; it was difficult not to when you were punched in the face by someone twice as strong as you. But Aunt May and Uncle Ben did not need to know that little detail.

As if Peter had summoned him, Uncle Ben appeared in the doorway, clutching a cardboard box that looked like it had seen better days. Luckily, this had the effect of distracting Aunt May from his injuries.

“Ben Parker! Don’t you even think about leaving that filthy box in my kitchen!” she said.

Uncle Ben looked slightly wounded. “These are my bowling trophies” he said, as if she’d suggested melting them down rather than simply moving them.

Aunt May rolled her eyes. “Well then, by all means leave that filthy box in my kitchen” she deadpanned.

“What happened to you?” Uncle Ben asked bluntly, spotting Peter. Luckily, he was spared from having to explain as second time by Aunt May.

“He fell skating.” She gave Peter a look. “Why you kids ride those things I’ll never know.”

“Because it’s stupid and dangerous” Uncle Ben explained. “Remember when we were stupid and dangerous?”

“No” Aunt May said in a tone of voice which suggested she remembered all too well and would rather not.

“Trust me, we were” Uncle Ben said. Peter laughed. “Good to know.”

Uncle Ben turned to leave the kitchen, leaving several wet footprints in his wake. “Hey, where’s the flood?” Peter joked, spotting them.

“Follow me, I’ll show you”

“Seriously?” Peter said in disbelief.

“Yup!”

Peter jumped down from the counter and followed his uncle down to the basement. It turned out he hadn’t been exaggerating, there was a good few inches of water covering the basement. It turned out the washing machine was leaking.

Unprompted, opened up the machine to take a look. He’d first taken the washing machine apart when he was seven years old, during one of the worst rainstorms New York had ever seen. Aunt May hadn’t been too pleased with him, until it turned out the machine somehow worked better than it had before when he put it back together two days later. After a similar incident involving the television, Uncle Ben had made the rule that he could only take apart what he was positive he could fix again. For most kids this would have ruled out pretty much everything; for Peter, it meant he’d taken apart every appliance in the house at least three times.

“I think it’s the condenser tray” Uncle Ben explained.

“Nah, too much water for the condenser tray, or the heat exchange tubing” Peter said. “This has got to be the fill line”

“That’s the only thing that makes any sense” his Uncle said. “Can you fix it?”

Around the time Peter had managed to fit a new kitchen sink at the age of thirteen with the help of a library book (that had been returned a little damper than before) his Aunt and Uncle had decided it was easier, quicker and cheaper to ask Peter to fix anything they couldn’t rather than calling a professional.

Peter couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been building things. When he turned fourteen, he stopped taking things apart and re-building them and started inventing new things. Upstairs he had the designs for gauntlets that could shoot grappling lines (not that he could get any prototype to work) and an electronic remote control door lock. Peter, along with his Aunt and Uncle, teachers and peers considered him to be smarter than average. Anyone with similar intellect would realise he was a genius.

“Nah, not tonight. I’ll stop by the hardware store tomorrow” he explained, already making a mental list of what he would need.

“Good deal. Meanwhile” Uncle Ben said “Put this on your face”. He tossed him frozen steak, which Peter held to the painful swell on his lips gratefully.

“How’s the other guy look?” Ben asked conversationally.

Peter froze, doing his best to look like he had no idea what his uncle was talking about. Evidently, he didn’t do a very good job, because Uncle Ben simply said “Come on, I know I right cross when I see one. Yes or no, do I have to call somebodies father?”

“No, no” Peter insisted quickly. Frankly, Flash Thompson had given him a lot worse over the years. Add that to the fact that getting the crap kicked out of you apparently got you the sympathy card with girls…

Uncle Ben interrupted his train of thought, which had been heading towards a certain blonde. “Well, I wouldn’t tell your Aunt May. I’d pity the poor kid who had to suffer her wrath.”

The thought of Flash Thompson having to face down an angry Aunt May on a mission almost made Peter reconsider his story. Almost, but not quite.

Uncle Ben was already on his way back upstairs with another box. “Before you come up, see if there’s anything else worth saving” he shouted before vanishing upstairs, leaving Peter alone.

Peter, left alone, shifted around in the few boxes his Uncle hadn’t already moved. Pulling one to the side, a storage space he’d never seen before caught his eye. He looked inside curiously; he couldn’t think of anything in storage he didn’t already know the location of.

Sitting in a lone cardboard box was a professional looking leather briefcase, strangely familiar looking. Peter squinted at it, spotting the initials monogramed onto the front.

R.P.

Richard Parker. Peters farther.

With a sudden flash of clarity, Peter realised where he’d seen the briefcase before. The day he’d walked into the wreck of his father’s lab and they’d driven him to Aunt May and Uncle Ben’s house, right before they disappeared forever. He’d been drowsy, on the edge of sleep, but he remembered seeing his farther place a file inside.

He’d assumed his parents had taken it with them. Clearly, he’d been wrong. So why had he never seen it again until now? Uncle Ben and Aunt May had never been sparse on details about his Mom and Dad. He had dozens of photos, of himself as a child with his parents as well as photos of Dad and Uncle Ben as kids. The only thing they didn’t talk about was his Dad’s research, claiming it had gone straight over their heads.

He opened every pocket and pouch the briefcase had, feeling desperately. The thing was full of junk, but no file. Maybe his Dad had taken the file but not the case? No, then why would he put the file inside only to remove it minutes later? Peter tried his search again, but no luck. He felt oddly cheated.

Peter picked up the case and walked back to the kitchen in something of a daze. He stared at the briefcase until his vison blurred, the lines and patterns of the leather fading into a haze. Aunt May and Uncle Ben were arguing about what plumbers would fix, but when they spotted him holding the briefcase they grew strangely silent.

If Peter had looked up at that moment, he would have seen the look of horror pass between his Aunt and Uncle. However, it was only when his Uncle spoke he was finally able to tear his gaze away from the revenant in his hands. So when Uncle Ben said with forced cheer “I forgot all about that thing” Peter had no reason to disbelieve him.

“It was your fathers” he continued, his voice becoming genuinely relaxed at the memory of his brother. “He asked us to keep it safe for him”

Peter nodded, not quite able to articulate a response. Seeing that his nephew was becoming a tad overwhelmed, Uncle Ben continued.

“He saw it on the window of a leather shop on 9th avenue” he chuckled “He was 19. What does a 19 year old kid need with a briefcase? And guess who sold it to him?”

Peter managed a shrug. “Your mother! That’s how they met.” Uncle Ben finished.

Finally managing to speak, Peter said “He asked you to keep this safe for him? Why? There’s nothing in here.” Peter was aware he was beginning to sound slightly more hysterical than he’d like, but he seemed unable to stop now he had started “Have you looked in here? There’s nothing here”

He finally managed to clamp his mouth shut. Aunt May stepped in quickly whilst he caught his breath. “You’re Farther was a very secretive man Peter” she said.

Peter laughed at that. It was possibly the understatement of the century. ‘Secretive’ was when someone preferred you not to know where you were going or who you were with. ‘Secretive’ didn’t quite cover dumping a four year old with no explanation and no warning.

Rifling through the briefcase almost reflexively now, Peter pulled out a newspaper clipping. It showed a photo of two young men. Even if Peter hadn’t seen thousands of pictures of the first the caption told him who it was; Richard Parker, his Farther. The second was a man of around the same age, wearing a lab coat. His right arm ended at a stump around his elbow.

Peter squinted at the caption, but whoever had torn this picture from the paper had torn out the part of the caption that identified the second man.

“Who’s that?” he asked, holding out the photo for his Aunt and Uncle to see. For a moment, Peter thought he saw a flicker of recognition in their eyes, but Uncle Ben simply shrugged, saying “Some guy who worked with your dad, I guess.”

Aunt May shrugged as well. Peter put the photo back in the briefcase, strangely disappointed. Really, what did it matter who the guy was? It wasn’t like he could bring his farther back for him.

All of a sudden, Aunt May snapped back into her usual business like self. Shoving the brief case into Peter’s arms, she said “Just take this off the table, alright, we’re going to eat!”

Peter wandered upstairs, barley registering Aunt May telling him to wash his hands. The atmosphere had changed. It was almost like the moment you let out a breath you hadn’t realised you had been holding. Somehow, he knew he wouldn’t be able to talk about the briefcase or his parent for quite a while without someone changing the subject.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, a new chapter! Sorry about the delay; as predicted, my holiday location had no wifi. The next one should be much quicker.


	5. A world without weakness

Peter lay on his bedroom floor, the contents of his father’s briefcase spread out neatly in front of it. He had been staring at it for the best part of an hour, like one of those children's party games where you had to memorise as many objects as you could in thirty seconds and then write them all down when they were taken away.

 

If that had been the case, Peter would have won hands down. He knew without looking exactly what the briefcase contained. The photo. Some loose change. A Subway token. An electronic spellchecker. A calculator. Four pens. An identification badge and pass card for Oscorp Industries. A glasses case.

 

Peter sighed to himself. Honestly, he had no idea why he was so enthralled by the case and its contents. He hardly remembered his parents, not properly. He had a few clear memories, but these were few. Of course he missed them, but not in the same way he would have if they had had more time together.

 

When Peter was younger, he had dreamed of his parents returning. As he got older, he’d begun to wonder if he would really go with them even if they did. He had Aunt May and Uncle Ben, who loved him and would never leave him without warning. But all the same, it felt like a part of him was missing. Neither he nor Aunt May nor Uncle Ben had been able to make sense of his parents vanishing act, or their death. Peter had never been able to stand things that didn’t make sense. Right from the age of three, Peter had always been asking questions, wanting to know what everything was, how it worked, what it mean. When he was old enough he began to look for the answers himself, in books, and later online. His vast knowledge and capabilities were only partially down to his level of intellect; it was his desire to understand everything he came across that made him a genius.

 

But this was something he had been unable to solve for thirteen years, and he couldn’t see how he was going to solve it now. Something told him he was inches away from finding out, but he couldn’t quite get there.

 

He sighed again, reaching for the glasses case. He opened it up, expecting it to be empty, finding instead to his surprise a pair of tortoise shell glasses. Some instinct made him take them into the bathroom.

 

Four year old Peter’s long ago wish had come true; he had turned out to be as short sighted as his father did indeed need glasses. The novelty had long since worn off however, and seventeen year old Peter never wore anything but contact lenses in public. But now he pulled the case for his contact lenses out of the cupboard, removing them from his eyes and placing them in the solution, before trying on his father’s glasses for the first time in thirteen years.

 

Last time he had done this his vision had blurred almost into nothingness. He didn’t expect a much better result this time; contrary to popular opinion, glasses were neither identical nor interchangeable and wearing someone else’s didn’t usually work. To his surprise, his vison snapped into a crisp focus, his reflection in the mirror as clear as if he had been wearing his own contact lenses. Clearly Peter’s eyesight was identical to his fathers.

 

He sat back down, the glasses still perched on his face. This time, he picked up the Oscorp ID badge, his father’s picture staring at him. According to the badge, he’d worked in genetics. Peter hadn’t known that.

 

For what must have been the thousandth time today, Peter picked up the briefcase again. His instincts were telling him that there was _something_ he was missing. He slid it from side to side, before opening the back pocket again. Running his fingers along the top of the lining idly, his hand suddenly snagged on something. There was a snapping sound similar to a popper button being undone… exactly like a popper button in fact.

 

Scarcely believing he’d finally struck lucky, Peter tugged at the lining. It came away from the bag in his hand, revealing a hidden pocket.

 

A hidden pocket containing a familiar looking file.

 

_YES!_

 

He jumped up, slamming his door shut and flicking the switch of the electronic lock he’d built himself on a rainy weekend years ago. Whatever was in this file, it had been worth hiding. Worth Peters parents leaving him.

 

He pushed that thought aside. No, he didn’t know for certain what had happened. But maybe tonight he would finally find out.

 

* * *

 

Peter stared in puzzlement at the equations in front of him. He understood them to an extent, but without knowing the context behind them, there was a limited amount he could learn.

 

One section in particular caught his eye. It was circled, clearly a breakthrough. “Zero zero decay rate algorithm” he murmured to himself, reading the scrawl in front of him out loud.

 

Before he could try to work out just what the heck a decay rate algorithm was, there was a knock on the door. Peter quickly shoved the file out of sight, shouting “Just a sec!” before unlocking the door. He waved the computer mouse around in a pantomime of working.

 

Uncle Ben walked in. “You okay?” he asked.

 

Peter forced himself to keep a blank face, nodding. “Yeah, what’s up?”

 

Whatever Uncle Ben had been going to respond was lost as he stopped short, looking at Peter in surprise. “My God, you look just like him” his Uncle said wistfully.

 

Peter remembered he was still wearing his Fathers glasses. He quickly lifted them off his face self-consciously, ignoring his now slightly blurred vision.

 

His Uncle sat down on the bed. “Listen Peter” he said, before hesitating. Clearly he knew what he wanted to say but wasn’t quite sure how to phrase it.

 

“I don’t have much education, you know that Peter. Hell, I stopped being able to help with your homework when you were ten.” He sighed. “What I’m saying is I know it’s been rough for you without your Dad, and I know we don’t talk much about them-”

 

Peter cut him off. “It’s fine” he said, and he meant it. His Dad had been Uncle Ben’s brother, he knew his death had hit him hard too. Besides, he could honestly say that this was the first time he had really, properly thought about his parents for more than a few minutes for a very long time. It wasn’t like he had been denied the chance to speak about them if he wanted to.

 

But Uncle Ben waved his objection aside. “No, it is not alright” he said sadly. “I wish I could change it but I can’t.” He took a breath in, and then said:

 

“Curt Connors”

 

For a second, Peter was completely confused by this seemingly random turn of conversation. He wondered for a second if he had zoned out and missed something vital.

The Uncle Ben said “That’s the name of the guy in the picture with your dad” and for the second time that day Peter felt oddly overwhelmed. This wasn’t just an inanimate object, this was a living, breathing connection to his parents. Proof that they had existed since beyond his frustratingly sketchy memories.

 

Seeing Peter’s eyes widen slightly, Uncle Ben explained. “They worked together for years and they were close. But after… _that_ night we never saw him again. He never even called. Not once.”

 

He paused, looking sadly at his nephew. Peter nodded slightly, once again unable to get any words out. Uncle Ben sighed sadly, suddenly looking rather tiered. “Go figure” he muttered, more to himself than to Peter.

 

After a pause, Uncle Ben caught sight of Peter’s computer. Peter suddenly remembered he had left it on the screen saver, a shot of the debate team he’d taken for the year group, cropped and angled so Gwen stood in the centre. It was the only picture he had of her. He would have preferred a shot of just her, but he could hardly go up to her and just say _Hey, can I take a photo of you for my computer because I kind of like you_? Not without sounding like a creepy stalker, anyway. Today had been the first time he’d had a conversation with her, and it had taken being pounded into the dirt to get that far. Short of repeating the stunt he had no idea how he was going to repeat the conversation.

 

He was at least 75% sure he wasn’t that desperate to talk to her again. Okay, 70%. Maybe 60%...

 

Uncle Ben interrupted, nodding at the photo. “She’s pretty” he said, standing up and heading for the door.

 

Peter willed himself not to blush like a ten year old girl, but he knew he was grinning like an idiot. Just as Uncle Ben was halfway out of the door, he suddenly blurted “Hey, Uncle Ben?”

 

His Uncle paused. “You’re a pretty great dad, alright?” Peter said. He wasn’t sure why, but he had for some reason felt the need to say what he’d felt for nearly ten years out loud.

 

Uncle Ben didn’t answer, just nodded. As he shut the door behind him, Peter caught the proud smile on his face.

 

* * *

 

An hour later, Peter was still at his computer.

 

He had found the article the picture of his father and Dr Connors had originally come from. It told him that they had both worked in cross species genetics, a theory Peter had only heard of in passing. Several internet searches later and he had memorised pretty much the entire theory.

 

Cross species genetics was the theory that it was possible to cherry pick the best genetic traits of any species and transfer these abilities to humans. Scientists who worked in this area claimed that this could be used to cure a number of diseases, but it seemed that Richard Parker and Dr Connors had been pursuing an endgame of using the DNA of creatures such as certain reptiles or starfish to regenerate missing limbs. Peter thought briefly of Dr Connors missing arm; was that what led them to specialise in cross species genetics?

 

Most of the scientific journals debunked this as the work of science fiction. Others went entirely in the opposite direction, hypothesising how humanity could gain fantastical abilities such as complete regeneration from caterpillar cells, or flight from bird cells. Peter dismissed these reports as flights of fancy, but he had to admit that it sounded a fascinating concept.

 

Later, he stumbled across an article about the plane crash that had killed his parents. He read that one as quickly as possible, avoiding the images of the wreckage of the what was remained of the plane, his stomach tightening uncomfortably.

 

He soon found an article by Dr Curtis Connors himself. His suspicions of how the man had gotten into the field off cross species genetics was furthered when he saw his speciality: herpetology, the study of lizards, some of which could regrow missing limbs. The article itself only backed this up; ‘ _Imagine a world without weakness, sickness, or human deformities. Imagine that everyone is equal.’_

 

Peter found himself warming to the guy, even if he had done a vanishing act after his parent’s deaths. An article later, he found what he was looking for.

 

_Dr Curtis Connors is currently living in New York and is employed by Oscorp Technologies._

 

Bingo.


	6. Oscorp Tower

Around the time he entered the lobby of the Oscorp Tower, Peter realised his plan had a few flaws.

 

Well, technically it just had one flaw: the fact he had no plan. Which as flaws go was pretty monumental.

 

To be completely honest with himself, he wasn’t even sure what Dr Connors could tell him. It wasn’t as if the man was likely to know why his parents had vanished, and nobody could bring them back, so what did he want?

 

Peter didn’t even know the answer to that. All he knew is that he wouldn’t figure it out by sitting at home. He’d just have to speak to Connors and hope that whatever he had to say would be enough.

 

Unfortunately, speaking to Dr Connors was looking more difficult now than it had last night. He hadn’t been able to find a contact number for him, and even if he had he doubted he would have used it. He could hardly leave an answerphone message saying _Hey, I’m your dead best friend’s son, mind if I come over for a chat?_

 

This meant his only option had been to go Oscorp Tower and improvise from there. He had seen a section on the internet noting that Dr Connors would be working with some interns, so he had a vague idea that he would just tag along at the back and hope nobody noticed him.

 

This was turning out to be trickier than anticipated. He ended up crossing the lobby twice before finally spotting a group of teenagers at the top of the escalator. Fully aware he was not doing a very good job of remaining unnoticed, as several employees seemed rather annoyed at the sight of a shifty looking teenager dragging a skateboard round their workplace in apparent circles, Peter headed for the escalator and hoped for the best.

 

* * *

 

 

Jill had been working for Oscorp for five years now, and she had an excellent memory for faces. She barely spoke to the Oscorp staff, most were in a rush more often than not and some seemed to be the type who wouldn’t bother to converse with the secretary anyway. But despite this she knew almost all 643 people who worked in the building on a regular basis by sight alone.

 

So in her position at the front desk, it took less than a second for her to notice when someone unfamiliar was in the lobby. Naturally, she expected to see a few unfamiliar high school students today, but so far each of them had come to the desk and enquired where they should go.

 

The young man wandering round the lobby like a confused pigeon did not fit that pattern. He had subtly but noticeably swerved away from the front desk, and was avoiding eye contact with anyone. Despite this, he clearly had no idea where he was going; he was currently passing the water cooler for the third time in less than two minutes.

 

Rolling her eyes, Jill reached for the phone on her desk that linked to the security office. Oscorp was the pinnacle of scientific research (well, apart from Stark Industries, but Jill was pretty sure saying so out loud was a firing squad worthy offence for Oscorp employees) and it wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to break in. The kid was probably doing it on a dare rather than corporate espionage, but it was her job to report it and securities job to sort out the details.

 

She had dialled the number and was waiting for a response when a hand reached over her shoulder, gently but firmly taking the phone and hanging it up.

 

Jill turned around in surprise. She knew before she looked it would be one of the black suited security personnel, the lot of them could move so silently she secretly suspected they received ninja training. They were a private firm, apparently Jill didn’t have the security clearance to know which firm. Still, they were no bother. A bit standoffish, but they were like that with everyone and Jill supposed it was part of the job.

 

This one was the red headed man with the nice smile. He flashed it at her now. “Relax, mam. He’s been security cleared.”

 

Jill shrugged. The kid sure didn’t look like he was supposed to be here, but she’d seen stranger in her time. Besides, he was currently heading towards the escalator and now she got a closer look she could see a security badge. Perhaps he’d been looking for someone he was supposed to meet and had only just spotted them? She had gotten used to just going with what the higher ups said.

 

* * *

 

 

So far, Peters new plan was not going as well as he’d hoped.

 

When he’d planned on hiding at the back of a group of interns, he hadn’t factored in the chance that someone who would recognise him would work at Oscorp.

 

Of course, up until yesterday he wouldn’t have thought Gwen Stacy would recognise him. God obviously had a cruel sense of irony.

 

Gwen led the group through the labs, going over the rules. For the most part, Peter was too busy trying to hide behind the others to hear what she was saying. Of all the people who could have been interning at Oscorp…

 

“Good afternoon Gwen,” a voice with a British accent said, interrupting Peter’s train of thought.

 

Peter tried to look over someone’s shoulder without making himself visible. Standing next to Gwen was a man with blonde hair, a lab coat, glasses, and a right arm that ended at his elbow.

 

 _Huh, I didn’t know Dr Connors was British,_ Peter thought.

 

“Good afternoon. My name is Dr Curtis Connors and yes, in case you’re wondering, I’m a southpaw,” he said with the air of someone who had made that joke to many times to still find it funny.

 

A few people giggled politely before he continued, “I’m not a cripple, I’m a _scientist_ , and I’m the worlds foremost authority on herpetology. That’s reptiles for those of you who don’t know.”

 

Peter remembered his earlier research on Connors. He guessed his thoughts on Connors research being linked to his missing arm were more accurate than he had thought.

 

“But like the Parkinson’s patient who watches on in horror as her body slowly betrays her,” Connors continued, “or the man with Macular Degeneration whose eyes grow dimmer every day I long to fix myself. I want to create a world without weakness. Anyone care to venture a guess just how?”

 

A few guesses were thrown out, all of them incorrect. Peter knew he should really keep quiet, given he was supposed to be hiding and all, but he couldn’t help himself. Partially it was the feeling that he’d just broken into one of the highest security buildings in New York specifically to seek out Connors and he might as well say something. Partially it was the slightly less justified desire to prove he actually knew the answer.

 

“Cross species genetics”

 

Reluctantly, Peter stepped into the gap made as the interns turned to see who was speaking. He spotted a wide eyes Gwen frantically checking her register but hardly registered it. He might be just a seventeen year old geek with very few friends who couldn’t even hold an intelligent conversation around a girl, but this was what he was good at and now he had started he was on a roll.

 

“A person gets Parkinson’s when the brain cells that produce dopamine start to disappear. But a Zebra Fish has the ability to regenerate cells on command. If you could somehow give this ability to the woman you’re talking about then that’s that. She’s… she’s curing herself.”

 

There was a loaded silence. The interns looked sceptical, Gwen looked surprised. Connors looked fascinated and rather impressed.

 

“And you are?” he asked Peter.

 

Peter hesitated, not sure whether to lie or not. He’d come all this way for answers, but if he was honest it would become clear quickly that he was not on the register and wearing someone else’s security badge. How likely was Connors to listen to him before he kicked him out?

 

To his surprise however, Gwen came to the rescue. “He’s one of Midtown Science’s best and brightest,” she informed Connors.

 

Clearly, that was enough for Connors at the moment. The group moved on, leaving just Peter and Gwen.

 

 

“Hi,” Gwen said.

 

Peter managed a nod. This time it was only partially the fact that Gwen was talking to him that made it frustratingly difficult for him to speak, the fact that he didn’t want to get kicked out was another good reason to keep his mouth shut.

 

“How are you doing,” Gwen paused to look at his badge “Richard.”

 

Peter laughed awkwardly. It had taken him less than half an hour on his computer last night to knock up a version of his father’s old security badge showing his own photo. He’d been gambling on the fact that people would simply check to see if he had a badge without looking closely enough to read it. Obviously it had been an optimistic hope.

 

“Oh yeah, look at that” he managed to reply, wincing inwardly at the pathetic response.

 

Luckily, Gwen didn’t seem to be looking for a reason to throw him out. On the contrary, she actually giggled. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

 

Peter scrambled around mentally for an excuse. “I work here,” he tried. Then he remembered why that wasn’t going to work. “I don’t work here. I was going to say I worked here, but it seems you actually work here so you know I don’t actually work here,” he backtracked in a rush.

 

Gwen raised an eyebrow. “Are you following me?” she asked, surprisingly looking like she wouldn’t mind if he was.

 

The idea that she wouldn’t mind made what remained of Peter’s brain to mouth filter dissolve entirely, his words coming out in another frantic rush. “No, I’m not following you, I’m not following you, no, I’m… I’m not, I had no idea you worked here!”

 

“So why would you be here?” she pursued.

 

Peter forced himself to shut up long enough to think of an excuse. The real answer was long, complicated and sounded both strange and downright unbelievable.

 

“I snuck in because… because I love science.” Peter said lamely. He just about managed to stop himself banging his head on the nearest surface at the pitiful excuse.

 

“You love Science?” Gwen repeated disbelievingly, starting to sound a little pissed off. She continued before he could get a word in, “listen, I have to lead this tour group. I’m going to ask you more about this later; _do not_ get me in trouble! Stay with the group!”

 

Peter nodded mutely. Gwen turned her back, leading the tour group on. Peter proceeded to reverse in the opposite direction.

 

He honestly had no intention of causing any trouble, just to try and find Dr Connors and speak with him without an audience. Unfortunately, his intentions didn’t seem to be working out today, as he promptly walked straight into another employee, causing him to drop what he was carrying.

 

“Sorry!” Peter said, the dark skinned employee glaring at him. He bent to pick up the files the guy had dropped, handing them over. He stared at them suddenly. The logo on the folder was the same one as the file his father had left behind.

 

The man snatched the files from his hand, giving him a final glare before walking off.

 

Peter hesitated for a second. He’d come here to see Connors, not go chasing random employees. The logo was probably something Oscorp used on all its files, the chances of this relating to the work of a scientist who died thirteen years ago where tiny. He should probably just go and find Connors.

 

Peter sighed in frustration at his own thoughts, before following the mysterious Oscorp employee.

 

* * *

 

 

Saul took another sip of his coffee, studying the monitors in front of him apathetically. Normally security work was interesting enough to keep his mind from wandering, because God knows you had to be switched on all the damn time. Watching the monitors had never been his favourite shift even in his last gig because it was difficult to get worked up about watching TV all day.

 

However, he had to admit he just generally wasn’t keen on his newest position. Private security at Oscorp, it turned out, meant pointing out all the problems _another_ private security firm, and then waiting idly until they decided whether they would do anything about it or if they would just delegate it to people like him. Meanwhile, whatever the security breach was continued uninterrupted whilst he twiddled his thumbs and the other firm took their sweet time deliberating over a cup of coffee.

 

If Saul had his way, he would just leave everything to one firm, keep things nice and simple. But no, Norman Osborn was apparently not only ridiculously paranoid but though he could do everyone’s job better than they could. This meant this stupidly overcomplicated system continued to make his life unnecessarily difficult, not to mention his colleagues.

 

He sat up suddenly, spotting something on a monitor. He picked up the phone, dialling the line which connected to the guys who actually had an interesting shift today, cursing under his breath.

 

He knew without checking that the person on the other end of the line would be one of the other security team, so he didn’t bother with the niceties. “Guy’s, I’ve got a kid on the security feed I don’t recognise,” he said “and he’s heading towards the labs. You might want to do something about this.”

 

“You are aware that today is internship day sir? Probably one of them,” the voice on the other end said patronisingly.

 

Saul resisted the urge to swear down the line. He’d learnt from experience that these guys never got worked up. “I don’t care if that’s Norman Osborn’s kid, interns are not authorised to wander off alone and they’re not even aloud to know that the level of security clearance you need for those labs exist.”

 

“Can you describe this kid for me please?” the voice on the phone said.

 

 _What the hell does it matter!_ Saul nearly yelled, but he bit his lip. This was exactly what he meant. Whatever the hell was in those labs was so top-secret that there was no security cameras inside; if this kid got in whilst he was wasting his time yammering then he could do anything in there with little they could do about it.

 

“Male, about 16-19 years old. About 5ft 10, brown hair, wears glasses. Green jacket, carrying a backpack and a skateboard,” Saul said as quickly as he could without garbling the message.

 

There was an infuriating pause, before the voice said, “He’s been cleared. Let him access wherever he wants.”

 

The dial tone indicated they had hung up. Saul swore, resolving to look for a new job as soon as possible.

 

* * *

 

 

Peter stood in front of the door to the lab that the Oscorp employee he had followed had just exited. The door was labelled ‘Biocable Development Unit’, and there was a slot for a security card on the door, meaning he was locked out.

 

He hopped from foot to foot, hesitating. Obviously, he wouldn’t be able to get into the room, so why was he still here? Why had he even come this far?

 

Maybe he’d just gotten distracted. Even Peter himself admitted that sticking him in a building full of the latest scientific inventions and research was like leaving a kid unsupervised in a candy store.

 

But if that was the only reason he would have simply moved on to another room by now. It was the fact that this was his dad’s research. His talent for science was one of the few connections he had with his father, and he wanted to know what research could possibly be so important that his parents would abandon a child over it.

 

 _Stop it. You don’t know for certain that whatever’s behind that door is even related to his research. You can’t even open the door!_ Peter repeated those three sentences in his head over and over and over, until he almost believed them.

 

So why was he still standing here?

 

Suddenly, he remembered what was in his pocket. Fumbling slightly, he pulled out his father’s security pass.

 

 _This is completely crazy. They’ll have de-activated it years ago,_ he thought.

 

Steeling himself, he swiped the card, half expecting alarms to start blaring. Instead, the door slid open.

 

* * *

 

Agent Clara Williams of SHIELD had been given several briefings when she had been assigned to Oscorp four years ago. Some she could recite as well as her own address. Others she had almost forgotten.

 

So when the computer terminal in front of her flashed the message ‘Code 50’ she had to flick briefly through her induction manual for the first time since training in an attempt to find out just what the heck a Code 50 was. When she saw the instructions, she nearly dropped the manual in surprise.

 

She switched her ear piece to the private channel, before saying, “This is Agent Williams, Oscorp Tower, security code Delta Alpha 100. Put me through to Director Fury. Richard Parker’s security card has been activated.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay on this chapter. I've had my A Level results this week, so it's been a chaotic few days sorting out University stuff.


	7. Prepare to neutralise

When he had been twelve years old, Phil Coulson had gone on a homework strike. After several hours battling with algebra he had taken out his history homework, only to decide ten minutes in that the people taking part in the Strike Wave of 1946 had gotten the right idea.

 

It had lasted ten days, which Phil Coulson still maintained was one of his more impressive achievements. After days of shouting, threatening, and detentions it had been his mother who convinced him to continue after resorting to outright bargaining and bribery.

 

“Phil honey,” she had told him, “I know it’s stupid and dull, but think of it this way. If you do it now and get it over with, then you’ll be able to choose any job you want and pick one that will never make to do homework again.”

 

This advice (along with the promise of five new Captain America comics of his choice) had finally convinced him to break his one man strike. It turned out, however, that he had not seen the back of homework once he’d finished college. The file that had appeared on his desk along with a note to see Director Fury for a briefing in five minutes was proof of that.

 

Sighing, he picked up the folder and headed for the Director’s office. Since he had been designated the role of unofficial handler for the Avengers, it was true that the files had become less frequent. However, they had also become _larger_ , and considerably more surreal. Some of the de-briefings about what Stark got up to in his leisure time had to be seen to be believed.

 

He didn’t bother knocking when he reached Fury’s office. He opened the door and took his usual seat next to Fury’s desk. Nick Fury himself sat opposite, raising an eyebrow in mock annoyance, as if Phil had actually knocked before coming in here any time in the last twelve years.

 

“You’ve been working with SHEILD what; 20 years now?” Fury asked unexpectedly.

 

“23. 24 next November,” Coulson responded dryly. “Why, are you thinking of sending a card?”

 

Fury ignored wise crack, continuing, “Then you remember the incident at Oscorp?”

 

“You’ll have to narrow that down sir,” said Coulson, only half joking. Oscorp had functioned as SHIELD’s main R&D liaison since Howard Stark’s death until his son had signed on as a consultant. Frankly, he actually preferred working with Tony. Say what you like about the man (and God knows, just about everyone did) but no matter what he was up to in his own time his tech always arrived on time, working better than the brief required and usually with extra features nobody had asked for but wished they did.

 

Oscorp had the opposite problem. They’re reputation was clean as clean can be and Norman Osborn was considered a cross between Einstein and a saint in some quarters, but they’re ethics were… questionable at best. Phil suspected that the only reason Fury hadn’t hung them out to dry was because they were the best in their field and SHIELD couldn’t afford to lose them.

 

Fury sighed, obviously also thinking of the numerous disasters that had been avoided by a hairs breath thanks to Oscorp scientists messing with things they shouldn’t. “Thirteen years ago,” Fury began “one of our scientists we assigned to Oscorp went rouge. He took with him a file with details of a level seven project.”

 

“The Richard Parker incident,” Coulson said, nodding. Of course, everyone remembered the incident. The cross-species genetics project was set to revolutionise modern medicine at the very least. At the most… but Parker had betrayed SHIELD, stealing vital information about the project with the intention of selling it to a third party. R&D had been completely overhauled afterwards, security quadrupled and more vigorous background checks introduced, to the annoyance of many.

Even after scouring the wreckage of the plane, SHILED couldn’t work out what happened. It was theorised that Parker had been killed off after the sale had gone sour, but that didn’t explain why the file had seemingly vanished into thin air.

 

Fury inclined his head slightly, the closest thing he ever did to nodding. “Earlier today, Richard Parker’s security card was used at Oscorp Tower.”

 

Coulson sat up in surprise. “Is there any possibility he’s still alive?”

 

Fury shook his head. “None whatsoever. Secretary Pierce identified the body himself. No, Richard Parkers not the problem here. This guy is.”

 

Fury placed a photo on the desk. It was blurry, in black and white, clearly from a security camera. It showed a shifty looking teenage boy with an absolute shock of brown hair and large glasses.

 

Seeing Coulson’s confusion, Fury explained, “This is the person how activated Richard Parker’s security card. We’ve identified him as Parker’s son, Peter.”

 

Whatever Coulson had been expecting Fury to say, it wasn’t that. “You’re telling me that a teenage boy decided completely out of the blue to break into his deceased father’s work place, which just happens to be the most secure lab in America, and had had a leisurely stroll around the place? Why?”

 

Fury didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Coulson continued his verbal train of thought. “Because he has something. Maybe a certain file.” Coulson paused, before asking “But even if he did, he couldn’t even understand it.”

 

Silently, Fury handed him a second document. This one was a record of Peter Parker’s grade point average and report cards since the age of five. Coulson’s eyebrows vanished into his hairline as he read. “Wow. How do you get an F in gym class?” he said with characteristic nonchalance.

 

“As you can see, Parker is more than capable of understanding his father’s research. Maybe capable of more than understanding it.” He left that statement dangling, leaving Coulson’s more than capable imagination.

 

“You suspected Parker knew more than he ever said. Why else would you leave the security card of a man who’s been dead for more than a decade active?” Coulson asked.

 

“Not him. Peter Parker was four years old at the time of the incident, hardly capable of deliberately misleading some of the best agents in the world. No, we’ve been keeping his Aunt and Uncle under surveillance, he’s simply been watched by default. We suspect they’ve been harbouring information which they may have passed onto him.”

 

“So you want to what? Neutralise a boy not yet old enough to purchase alcohol?” Coulson said. His usual deadpan tone hid a steely edge, subtly letting Fury know what he would think if that were the case. Of course, that wouldn’t stop him from actually doing it.

 

However, Fury said, “Not neutralise. Watch. We don’t know what Parker intends to do with any information he has. We don’t even know what information he has. You know what we asked Richard Parker and Curtis Connors to build for us. If the boy is capable of that then we could have that power in the hands of someone who could very well pose a real threat.”

 

Coulson smiled thinly. “I think I’ve got someone who can take care of that.”


	8. Once Bitten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own anything from the Marvel Universe or Spiderman. If I did I would have be much richer. I'm just borrowing these guys for a while.

Peter was willing to admit with the benefit of hindsight that fiddling with the mysterious equipment in the sci-fi lab was perhaps not his best idea.

 

Really, he had only wanted to see how the machine worked. He hadn’t expected to get a spider shower like some task from a crappy survivalist show. Peter was far from squeamish about insects, but he had his limits, and a spider shower was so far past his limits it was in a different state. It had really _sucked._

He’d stumbled (literally stumbled, much to the annoyance of the people trying to walk around him) out of Oscorp Tower and onto the subway. He’d been intending to stay behind and find Connor’s, as well as give a more coherent excuse of his presence to Gwen, but his head was pounding and he hadn’t been able to stop shaking since his impromptu introduction to the Spider’s.

 

 _God, pull yourself together!_ He thought to himself. _It’s just a few insects, and you got rid of them all anyway. You’re fine!_

 

   Clearly he’d managed to jinx things, because a wave of dizziness nearly sent him sprawling out of his seat. He forced his head between his legs, breathing heavily.

 

He wondered briefly if he was getting sick, before dismissing that thought. Surely no illness could come on this quickly? Maybe he’d eaten something bad?

 

His stomach twisted uncomfortably, and he actually retched a couple of times, genuinely thinking he was going to vomit. The people sat either side of him shot him looks of disgust before getting up and moving warily to the other side of the carriage.

 

Peter was now stuck in a conundrum. He couldn’t escape the feeling that he was going to vomit unless he sat up straight, but without his head between his legs he felt he was going to pass out. For a second he contemplated which he’d prefer to do, before he spotted the recently vacated seat next to him. Lying down might help, but he didn’t think that was something people were supposed to do on public transport.

 

In the next thirty seconds, however, it became apparent that if he didn’t lie down he really was going to be sick. He ignored the dirty looks being thrown at him by the entire carriage and starred at the ceiling. Was it supposed to be spinning like that?

 

 _Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out. Do not pass out!_ Peter repeated desperately in his head.

 

Ten seconds later, he was out for the count.

 

* * *

 

 

By the time Peter stumbled out of the subway station the events of the subway car where already a bit of a blur. He seemed to remember accidentally beating up an entire subway car, as well as apologising a lot, but since the events were a bit fuzzy he was in a state of denial. Come on, any memory that involved him sticking to the ceiling had to be a delirium, right?

 

The bad thing about that theory was that if he was sick enough to hallucinate then something was seriously wrong. The waves of dizziness were getting closer together and he was beginning to feel like he was trapped in a freezer, despite it being a fairly warm evening.

 

Despite it only being a five minute walk home Peter was forced to stop around the halfway mark. For some reason, as though feeling sick, dizzy, and cold wasn’t enough he was jumpy as hell on top of everything else.

 

After taking a few deep breaths, Peter looked up at his surroundings. Was it his imagination, or were the streetlights way brighter than normal? A police car whizzed passed, siren blaring, and he jumped. Where they usually that loud? He raised a hand to his forehead and to his surprise it came away damp with sweat. How the hell could he be sweating when it was this cold?

 

The rush of unexplained questions very nearly brought on another dizzy spell. With the forced optimism of someone who knows they’re wrong, he told himself: _I’m fine. I’m fine. There is nothing wrong with me._

 

Almost as if he had willed the symptoms of illness away, Peter’s vision suddenly snapped into focus again. He was still shaking slightly, and a little warm for comfort, but a decent rush of adrenaline had him on his feet again, thoughts rushing at a hundred miles per hour.

 

His stomach rumbled? How long had it been since he’d eaten? A couple of hour’s maybe?

 

The realisation of how far away his last meal had been made Peter realise that it was dark already, way past his curfew. Crap. Aunt May and Uncle Ben would be freaking out.

 

With a burst of energy he wouldn’t have thought possible five minutes ago, Peter took off at a run.

 

* * *

 

 

Okay, so eating a plate of meatloaf, a semi defrosted macaroni and cheese, a tub of coleslaw and half a tub of Ben and Jerry’s phish food ice cream less than half an hour after nearly throwing up? As ideas go, it was up there with the whole ‘messing around with the spider machine’. Unfortunately, Peter didn’t realise this until after he had vomited into his bathroom sink twice. This was not turning out to be one of his better days.

 

He was currently in almost as bad a state as he had been on the subway. Splashing some water on his face, Peter forced himself to think calmly. What exactly was wrong with him?

 

Dizziness. Fever. Feeling cold, shakiness, stomach pains, sweats. Quick switches between tiredness and adrenaline rushes. Nothing to worrying about those symptoms, all pretty common. Hallucinating that he was on the celling of a subway car was less common, but still not too bad. It was probably just a bug. A really, really awful bug.

 

Oh, and there was the pain in the back of his neck to, something Peter hadn’t had a chance to think about until now; what with the real possibility of passing out in the streets of New York. He reached shakily to the area in question, looking for a bump or bite.

 

To his surprise, his hand brushed against… hair? No, too strong for that. Thread maybe? He tugged at it, expecting it to be a part of his shirt, only to shout in pain and surprise as it detached instead from the painful area of his neck.

 

He pulled it round to his front in order to get a proper look. It looked like silk thread, but it was too heavy for that, to strong. He pulled it out from under his shirt, only to realise there was something attached to the end. With a sickening feeling, Peter reeled in the thread.

 

When he reached the end of it, he had a very large, very dead spider in his hands, identical to the ones he had taken a shower in earlier that day.

 

Peter took a second to stop himself from vomiting for a third time. There was a pause, before he managed to say:

 

“Oh. Holy. Crap.”

 

* * *

 

 

The next day, Peter didn’t remember how he got into bed. He didn’t remember the spider or feeling sick. Like most teenagers, he wasn’t good with early mornings. It was for this reason he didn’t even notice that he had managed to pound his alarm clock into the desk, completely smashing it.

 

He put the small explosion of toothpaste down to a simple mistake. Pulling the tap from his sink was a surprise, particularly the shower of water that followed. By this time, he was awake enough to realise that it was a bad sign when he pulled the towel rail from the wall. But that could be explained.

 

However, when he yanked the doorknob clean off, he had to admit that something was not normal here.

 

When he reached his bed again, he remembered the events of last night.

 

This was not good at all.

 

**_> Danger!<_ **

Peter jumped automatically. Something was in the right hand side of his room that shouldn’t be. He had no idea how he knew, he just did. There was a scuttling noise coming from the wall…

 

It was a spider. A normal, non-sci-fi-lab-bred spider.

 

There were two important questions here. Firstly, how did he manage to hear a spider moving from the other end of the room? Secondly, how had he known it was there before he had heard or seen it?

 

Peter tried a couple of times to describe the six sense that had warned him of the spider, but had to give in. It was rather like attempting to describe what the colour red looked like, or what the a bang sounded like. He simply didn’t have the concept to place it in. Just that his body had perceived danger somehow and warned him.

 

 _I wasn’t hallucinating on the subway car, was I?_ Peter thought, strangely resigned. _I actually stuck to the ceiling. I beat up an entire subway cart_ on a reflex _because I perceived danger._

 

So, to recap, he had a weird sixth sense that told him when he was in danger, super strength, super hearing, super reflexes, and he could somehow stick to surfaces.

 

So, a little more complicated than just a bug.

 

* * *

 

It turned out that getting to speak to Dr Connors had been much easier than Peter expected.

 

He had been driven to attempt to speak to him again after his session of trying to work out himself just what the hell had happened to him had turned out very little in the way of results. Rather unsurprisingly, he hadn’t been able to find any cases even remotely similar to his own, and had been forced to give in looking after he had accidentally pulled apart his keyboard.

 

It was the realisation that all the weird crap had started right after the incident with the Spiders in Oscorp that had driven him back to his father’s file, along with Dr Connors research on cross species genetics. He hadn’t been able to gage much, he simply didn’t have all the information needed to be able to understand the whole of the file yet, but he was certain that the mysterious Decay Rate Algorithm was a part of cross species genetics.

 

Cross species genetics… spiders. He’d been right to think they were something to do with his father. Which meant Dr Connors might know what was happening to him.

 

Honestly, he had intended to state his case a little better than he had, which was simply blurting out his identity after turning up on the poor man’s doorstep out of the blue. But in fairness, Connors had taken it rather well. He didn’t even seem to find anything strange about Peter catching a falling mug of tea mid-air, which was a relief, because Peter really didn’t know how he would have explained that.

 

“I read your book,” Peter said, in an attempt to turn the conversation to the area he needed.

 

Connors looked impressed. “You understood it?”

 

Peter nodded. “So, you really think it’s possible? Cross species genetics?” he asked.

 

“Yes, of _course_ it is,” said Connors, so emphatically it bordered on fiercely, “You’re father and I were mocked for I theories. Not just in the community at large but at Oscorp to. They called us mad scientists. But a few people saw the potential, important people, and when we bred the spiders everything changed. The results were beyond encouraging, they were spectacular!”

 

Connors looked wistful. “We were going to change the lives of millions. Including my own. Then it was over. He… he was gone. Took his research with him. Without him, I-”

He broke off, clearly still raw over how close he had come to success. “I was angry. So I stayed away from you and your family, and for that I am truly sorry.”

 

Peter nodded silently. He’d wanted the truth about his parents; now he had it. He still didn’t know why his father had taken the research, but seeing Connors, how desperately he wanted this… Peter understood why he’d be mad. Now he just had the fact that he’d become an unwitting test subject to incomplete research to worry about.

 

“Say it worked. Say you got it to work; how much would the foreign species take over? What could the side effects be?” he asked, almost afraid to hear he answer.

 

Dr Connors considered for a moment, before saying, “It’s hard to say, given no test subjects survived.”

 

Peter’s stomach tightened. With a supreme effort, he managed to keep his face straight and voice level as he asked, “What happened to them?”

 

“Their bodies were rejecting the foreign species. The mutations caused… they were indescribable. No one made it more than six hours,” Connors explained.

 

This time, Peter lost control of his facial expression, breaking into a grin. Six hours. It was over four times that since he’d been bitten, and he was still standing. Clearly his father must have done something before he left. He was safe.

 

Luckily, Connors was too wrapped up in his explanation to notice Peter breaking into a grin at the mention that several people had died very gruesome deaths. He continued, “The problem was always-”

 

“-The Decay Rate Algorithm,” Peter finished for him.

 

Connors looked surprised. “Right,” he said.

 

Peter nodded, rushing to the other side of the room hastily. He grabbed a pen and paper, just barely remembering to ask permission first. He forced himself to slow down, but he was all but bouncing from excitement. He hadn’t had the information he needed to make sense of the Algorithm before now, but suddenly it clicked.

 

The Algorithm stabilised the foreign species long enough for the two sets of DNA to combine into one. Once the foreign species had been accepted, there should be no negative side effects; he was living proof of that. Which meant… they could do it.

 

He handed the paper to Connors, they Decay Rate Algorithm that he had memorised after days of reading and re-reading his father’s file.

 

Connors looked disbelievingly at the paper in front of him. “Extraordinary. How did you come up with this?”

 

Peter considered mentioning the file, but for a reason he couldn’t place he didn’t. It was like the danger sense he’d had that morning, but subtler. Sure, he understood this part of the file now, but the rest was still a mystery. His father had gone to great trouble to hide it, there was a good chance there was something in there that he didn’t want people to see, especially if he was willing to hide his life’s work alongside it.

 

There was another reason he didn’t admit to himself. Sure, his father had come up with this, but he’d figured it out. If he told Dr Connors that he’d copied it from his father’s notes, it would be Richard Parker's discovery. This way, he got some of the credit. In wanting both to do the right thing, to make the world better, but wanting the glory as well, Peter Parker was suddenly more like his father than he would ever realise.

 

Which is why in answer to Connors question he simply tapped the side of his head, smiling. Connors grinned back. “Peter, how would you feel about coming to see me in the Tower one day after school?” he asked.

* * *

 

Curtis Connors watched Peter leave in disbelief. He still couldn’t quite believe that the boy was real at all.

 

It had been years before he could even think about Richard without wanting to break something. He hadn’t just been a colleague; he’d considered him a friend. They’d met at university, only a few years after the accident. When he’d confessed his desire to cure himself one day, he’d expected Richard to laugh at the implausibility, or simply give him that pitying gaze he sometimes caught people giving him when they thought he couldn’t see. Instead, Richard Parker had simply raised an eyebrow, taking it as a challenge. It had been Richard who’d introduced him to the theory of Cross Species Genetics, who’d suggested they pitch their research to Norman Osborn.

 

So when Richard had pulled a vanishing act it had been like a punch in the gut to Curt. Contrary to popular opinion, scientists were not omni-disciplinary. He simply didn’t have the same area of knowledge as Richard, leaving him no chance of creating the serum himself. But the loss of the serum he could have learnt to cope with. God knows it couldn’t be harder than learning to cope with one arm. But it felt as if Richard had given in on him, had been laughing behind his back all those years like all the others who had called his theories mad.

 

By the time he had cooled down enough to seriously consider what happened to Peter, he’d simply left it to long. He remembered the boy vaguely; he’d been to Richard’s house many times, and on a few occasions the boy had come to the lab. He’d resigned himself to the fact that they would be his only memories of the boy.

 

But now here he was, practically a man, looking so much like Richard… and impossibly, twice as clever. A genius, more so that his father had been. What Richard had taken away in an evening the boy had restored in an afternoon.

 

Clearly, someone had decided to give him a second chance, in more ways than one. He would be a fool to waste it. 

* * *

 

Peter Parker and Curtis Connors, both wrapped up in their own thought, carried on. Both failed to notice the figure emerge from the tree in Connors garden, where they had seen the whole exchange. They pause, before following Peter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It should be noted that I suck at science, so I apologise if the extended science stuff doesn't stand up to scrutiny. I've tried to do a bit of research to make sure it sounds semi plausible, but I really wouldn't know.


	9. With Great Power

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own anything from the Marvel Universe or Spiderman. If I did I would have be much richer. I'm just borrowing these guys for a while.

It took a few days before Peter managed to get some semblance of control over his new powers. There had been the incident with the microwave, but luckily he’d managed to reattach the door before Aunt May or Uncle Ben had noticed. The time he had leaned against the wall and came away with a large strip of wallpaper stuck to his palm had been a little more difficult; he’d had no option there but to swear blindly he had no idea how it got that way. He wasn’t entirely sure Aunt May believed him, but she hadn’t perused it, and Uncle Ben simply muttered that he’d always hated that wallpaper anyway.

 

Aunt May _had_ been rather suspicious when he managed to rip a cupboard clean off the wall in front of her, despite his protests that he couldn’t possibly pull it off on his own and it must have already been broken. She’d spent a few minutes insisting that it had been fine the last time she’d used it, but as she couldn’t come up with another explanation he’d escaped that incident unscathed.

 

After that Peter had made an effort not to touch anything if front of Aunt May or Uncle Ben unless absolutely necessary. They were already a little more suspicious of him than usual anyway; he was pretty sure that they were convinced he’d come home high as kite when he’d first been bitten, in which case he’d been rather lucky to escape an intervention.

 

But a week on he’d reached the stage where he had figured out how to grip things in a way which wouldn’t result in them sticking to him, and he could touch most objects normally without breaking them as long as he concentrated properly.

 

Unfortunately, whenever he was tiered, mad, or even just not paying one hundred percent of his attention to not breaking things, accidents were still pretty common. Which is why he really, really, _really_ should have been paying attention when he tried to turn on the water fountain at school.

 

The faucet came clean off in his hand, resulting in everyone in the vicinity receiving an impromptu shower. There were a few shrieks as well as quite a few swear words thrown around. Panicking, Peter tried to shove the faucet back on in an attempt to stem the shower at least a little, but in his panic he only managed to punch a small hole in the sink. The flow of water turned from a shower to a full blown blast, soaking the entire corridor.

 

Peter jumped back, spluttering. His now soaked fringe was plastered over his forehead and in his eyes, obscuring his vision. The shrieks had increased, but with his newly sensitive hearing he could hear a few people muttering angrily, clearly beginning to realise the source of the problem. Now might be a good time to beat a hasty exi-

 

**_> DANGER!!!< _ **

 

Peter didn’t think about it, just ducked swiftly. His new danger reflex, which he’d privately christened ‘spider senses’ had been causing him to literally jump at shadows but there was literally nothing he could do about it, it was a reflexive action. When he looked up however, he suddenly found himself extremely gratefully for his newfound jumpiness.

 

Standing in front of him was Flash Thompson, who looked both very, very wet and very, _very_ pissed off.

 

 _Aw shit_.

 

Peter considered running, but a crowd had already gathered at the prospect of a fight, blocking off any easy exit roots. Judging by the catcalling, people knew who’s side they were on and it wasn’t the guy who had soaked them all.

 

Peter ducked another punch. “Oh, you are so dead, Parker!” Flash yelled over the other students.

 

“Well, that’s an original threat,” Peter muttered. Clearly not quietly enough, as Flash charged again.

 

For a few seconds, they were stuck in some ludicrous parody of a fight. Flash would throw a punch; Peter would sense what he was going to do before he did it and move accordingly. Every time one of his punches missed, Flash would get angrier.

 

“Flash!” shouted a female voice. Gwen stepped out of the crowd in a futile attempt to defuse the situation. Even soaking wet and with her hair plastered to her skull she was gorgeous. “Come on Flash, are we really going to do this now?”

 

Normally Gwen had a talent for defusing situations like these (it was her _voice_ ; she could sound exactly like her father when she wanted to and it was downright terrifying) but Flash was clearly past listening to reason. The next punch had Peter backed into a corner. Without thinking about it he knew he didn’t have anywhere to duck this time.

 

Which was why this time, when Flash threw a final punch that would have hit him straight in the eye, his spider senses told him to fight back, not run. Completely reflexively, Peter grabbed Flash’s wrist, stopping the punch mid-air.

 

He realised it was the wrong decision as soon as he heard the cracking noise Flash’s wrist made as he closed his fist over it.

 

Flash howled in pain and surprise. The shouting from the crowd of other students stopped abruptly, and Peter let go of Flash’s wrist and backed away in surprise. Flash’s friends crowded around him, all of them giving Peter looks of shock and scorn.

 

“Jesus Parker, you really are a psycho freak!” one of them spat.

 

Peter just looked around in confusion, holding onto his right hand like he was afraid it would autonomously hurt someone else. He hadn’t meant to do that, he’d just been trying not to get hurt… surely they could see that?

 

But judging by the looks on everyone’s faces, they couldn’t see that. Peter took a confused step forward, and most of the crowd took a panicked step back. He stopped, panicked and a little hurt. Not entirely sure what to do, he looked around, hoping childishly for someone to come to his rescue, to explain what the hell just happened, because he sure as hell couldn’t.

 

He spotted Gwen. Unlike most of the crowd she hadn’t backed off, but she was giving him a wide eyed look of pure shock. “Peter,” she said, “What the hell did you do?”

 

It was at this point, with a corridor full of soaking wet and terrified students, a broken drinking fountain still showering the corridor with water, a pupil with broken wrist and his extremely confused attacker seconds away from bolting that the Principal walked in.

* * *

 

By the time he exited the Principal’s office with Uncle Ben several hours later, Peter had managed to calm down somewhat. Not having everyone stare at him like he was about to go feral was helpful, and the Principal had been surprisingly lenient. He wasn’t in trouble about the drinking fountain at all; they’d assumed it had been broken anyway and Peter had been unfortunate enough to be the one to discover that.

 

The fight had been more difficult to explain. At least he hadn’t been suspended for it; it turned out being a science nerd with a good record was good for something.

 

It was Uncle Ben’s reaction Peter was worried about. His Uncle had always been a stickler for responsibility, and this incident really did not fall under the category of responsible behaviour.

 

Fishing around for something to say, Peter eventually piped up, “Well, at least they’re not going to make us pay for the drinking fountain.”

 

The second it was out of his mouth Peter knew it wasn’t the right thing to open with, so he wasn’t particularly surprised when his Uncle snapped, “I don’t care about the dam fountain! Is it true what I heard in there? You broke some kid’s arm?”

 

“Yeah, but he started it!” Peter said. As soon as it was out of his mouth he realised that it was a really dumb argument. He’d meant that he was only trying to defend himself, but he’d made it sound like he’d seriously injured Flash on purpose.

 

Evidently Uncle Ben caught that implication as well, because he said in a dangerously calm voice, “Is he the kid that hit you?”

 

Not liking where this was going, Peter replied, “Yeah, yeah he was.”

 

“So all of this was about getting even, right? If so I guess you must feel pretty good about yourself right? Am I right?”

 

Peter shuffled uncomfortably. No, he hadn’t wanted to hurt Flash- but he’d be lying to himself if he didn’t admit that a tiny part of him thought the guy had deserved to know what it felt like to be on the wrong end of a beating.

 

Uncle Ben sighed angrily, clearly reading his nephew’s guilty silence. “Well,” he said, “Thanks to your little escapade I had to change shifts at work so you have to pick up your Aunt May tonight at nine o’clock. Understood?”

 

Peter nodded. Uncle Ben frowned suspiciously, before noticing something over Peters shoulder. “She looks familiar,” Uncle Ben said.

 

Peter turned round just in time to see Gwen close the door of the Principal’s office. He turned back quickly before he could to anything stupid in front of her, only to see his Uncle smiling mischievously.

 

“She’s the girl on your computer,” he said.

 

Peter tried to deny this as quickly as possible, as he did not like where this was going. Unfortunately, this didn’t stop his Uncle from shouting, “He’s got you on his computer! I’m his probation officer!” before leaving Peter alone with Gwen.

 

Gwen was giving him a rather understandably confused look. Peter laughed awkwardly, quickly saying “That’s my Uncle. He’s a, um… a pathological liar and he… thought you were someone else…” he tailed off, thinking: _God, if you exist please kill me now._

 

“Aw man, you don’t have me on your computer?” Gwen said teasingly.

 

“Well yeah. I mean, I took a photo of the debate team, and you’re in the debate team, so… he must have seen you, because I was, um, touching up stuff-”

 

“You were touching up stuff?” Gwen asked. Peter felt himself turn bright red.

 

“I’m not going to answer that!”

 

Gwen laughed, before becoming serious again. “I, um- I spoke to the Principal just now. I told him what happened; with Flash I mean. I mean, I told him it was an accident and you were just defending yourself.”

 

“Really?” Peter said, surprised and more than a little relived. At least Gwen didn’t think he was a maniac. She probably thought he was a bumbling idiot, but he could understand where that assumption came from.

 

“Well, yeah. It was an accident right? Because it would be kind of embarrassing if it wasn’t.” Gwen said.

 

Peter nodded, then forced himself to stop when he realised he’d been doing it longer than was normal.

 

“Do you wanna, um… you know… I mean…” _What the hell am I doing!_ “We could, um… just… or we could do something else, I mean…” Peter stammered as he somehow lost the ability to translate thoughts into words. Great, first he’d broken school property, then he’d gotten into a fight, then he got in trouble with the Principal, _then_ he got Uncle Ben mad at him, now he was making an idiot of himself in front of Gwen. Just the perfect way to round the day off. Maybe he could just go into hibernation for a few months-

 

“Okay,” Gwen said.

 

It would not be an exaggeration to say Peter nearly fell over in surprise.

 

Holy God, he had not been expecting that to actually work. He was so surprised he barely managed to stammer out a goodbye. Still, he did manage to wait until Gwen was out of sight before doing a victory dance, which he figured almost made up for the stammering.

 

* * *

 

“We have protein structure, R DNA, chromatography, transgenics testing, that’s X-Ray video, _that’s_ the only one on the planet-”

 

Peter had been on such a high from managing to have an actual conversation with Gwen (well, he’d stood and stammered and she’d responded, which was the closest he’d come to having a conversation with her yet) that he’d actually nearly forgotten he’d promised to see Dr Connors at Oscorp that evening. This showed just how scrambled his brain had been, because he’d been waiting his entire life to find himself in a lab where he was allowed to actually touch whatever he wanted.

 

“Hey, I remember that,” he said suddenly, pointing to a device in the corner that had been cheerfully admitting steam for the last ten minutes. He did as well. “I remember a picture of it in my Dads office.”

 

“The Ganali device?” Connors said. “The idea’s simple, you load it with an antigen, it creates a cloud which can be dispersed over a neighbourhood, or even an entire city. Theoretically you could cure Polio in an afternoon!”

 

“But that’s incredible!” said Peter, thoroughly impressed. Why the hell didn’t they use that thing?

 

Clearly Connors realised what he was thinking, because he continued, “Well others disagree. What if the device was loaded with a toxin? What if you wanted to opt out? You can’t run away from a cloud. So, here it lies, gathering dust.”

 

They continued down to the lab Connors had set aside for the cross species genetics research. To Peter’s surprise, he was being led down the corridor that contained the Spider room.

 

“Hey, what’s in there?” he said, pointing to the door to the lab he had broken into only days before, trying to sound casual and probably failing miserably.

 

However, Connors didn’t seem to see anything strange about his interest. “Oh, that. Up until three days ago it housed the spider’s your Father and I bred in the hope of completing our experiments,” Connors said wistfully.

 

“You mean they’re gone?” Peter blurted in surprise.

 

“Yes, unfortunately they were taken away by security. It’s a miracle I managed to keep them this long, since the only one capable of knowing what on Earth to do with them was your Father. We discovered the webbing they produced was extraordinarily strong; Oscorp has been selling it as bio-cabling for years now. But our scientists figured out how to develop the webbing from scratch just over a year ago, so I suppose they’d been living off borrowed time for a while.”

 

Connors sighed sadly, clearly once again mourning the loss of what those spiders could have brought him. Suddenly, he reached into his pocket, pulling something out.

 

“Here, souvenir for you,” he said, tossing a small metal capsule to Peter. “There’s over 100ft of bio-cable in there. You could probably work out how to create it in a week.” He smiled, and Peter felt a rush of pride at Connors faith in his abilities.

 

“Now, let’s get to work,” Connors said, and they continued to the genetics lab. 

* * *

 

The SHIELD agent assigned to follow Peter had been a little surprised by his assignment. He was generally an assassin, not a spy. Coulson, however, had insisted he was the guy for the job, and God knows questioning Coulson usually resulted in a broken limb one way or another.

 

So it was a little weird to be following someone without his weapon at the ready. He felt distinctly vulnerable without it, but even he had to admit that his preferred brand of weaponry was a little inconspicuous. He had enough handguns hidden on him to take down a minor army, sure, but guns had never been the weapons he felt comfortable in.

 

Secondly, he wasn’t sure about this whole ‘hiding in plain sight’ business. He was good at _hiding,_ but actual hiding, up high and out of sight, not just dressing as a civilian and wandering around hoping his mark wouldn’t notice him.

 

Honestly, if anyone but Phil had asked him to do it he would have told them exactly where to stick it. He was pretty sure there was something in his contract that covered him against this sort of mission (maybe, he wasn’t entirely sure he’d ever actually read his contract) but he’d never been able to say no to anything Coulson asked of him.

 

Luckily, his mark had turned out to have zero suspicion that he was being followed. The kid- Peter- didn’t seem to be at all dangerous.

 

There had only been two points of interest so far. Firstly was the kid’s affiliation with Dr Curtis Connors. Connors had always been a genius, but it was understood that his interest in Cross Species Genetics had bordered on obsession. Richard Parker had been understood to be the one keeping him under control back when the project was started, but he seriously doubted a seventeen year old kid could be expected to control Connors in the same way, even if he was some kind of super genius. He’d have to flag that up next time he reported to Coulson.

 

The second had been an isolated incident at a garage earlier today. The kid had been messing around, swinging around on chains dangling from the roof like Tarzan. According to his briefing this was the kind of kid who couldn’t get through gym period, and no way did he look like he had the kind of upper body strength required for that kind of thing.

 

Unfortunately, the kid wasn’t doing anything nearly interesting as defying the laws of physics or playing mad scientist right now. The SHIELD agent had followed Peter to some crappy store after he’d stormed out of his Aunt and Uncle’s house. Given the shouting and the fact the kid had slammed the door so hard he’d actually smashed the glass in it, he was going to take a leap of faith as say there had been an argument, which meant he was stuck waiting for the kid to come out.

 

Luckily, he didn’t have to wait long. Peter came out of the store soon after. To the agents’ surprise, however, a guy he took to be the manager came out soon afterwards.

 

“Hey, somebody stop that guy!” the manager shouted. Clint spotted a blonde guy clutching a six pack who’d come out just before Peter make a run for it. Obviously he hadn’t paid for those. The manager turned to Peter, annoyed. “Hey kid, a little help!”

 

“Not my policy!” he heard Peter shout back, clearly quoting.

 

The manger continued to holler about the thief. The agent briefly considered helping, but Peter was wandering in the other direction and he couldn’t afford to lose him. Ah well, NYPD would sort it out.

 

Clearly he’d managed to jinx it, because it was at that point he heard the gunshot.

 

Obviously, Peter heard it to, because he turned, wandering over to the area cautiously. Turning to keep an eye on him, the agent spotted a body.

 

He ran his hands through his cropped blonde hair. Shit, what was the protocol for the mark witnessing a murder? This was why he was an assassin. Go in, shoot target, and get out. Nice and simple. Being a spy involved way to many variables.

 

The kid was now only a few steps away from the body. Should he intervene here? No, Coulson had said not to intervene unless it was an emergency. Of course, he’d neglected to specify what actually counted as an emergency. Thanks a lot Phil.

 

He expected the kid to be a little upset. After all, he’d just discovered a body. But he didn’t expect what happened next; Peter went slightly hysterical. The kid was crying, and he could hear him shouting desperately for an ambulance.

 

Shit, did Peter know this guy? He wasn’t close enough to get a good luck at the body. Did having your mark go hysterical in the middle of a very dangerous neighbourhood late at night count as an emergency.

 

He could practically hear Coulson snaking at him to use his initiative. Aw hell.

 

“Okay,” he muttered to himself, “This looks bad,” and with that, he sped off to see what the hell was going on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really sorry about the delay between chapters. Will try to be quicker in future. Sorry!


	10. Wounded

This is Benjamin Parker.

 

He was born in Brooklyn, and never left New York in his life. But don’t let the fact he settled in the same neighbourhood he grew up in fool you; Ben Parker is far from stupid. He hasn’t been in the same job for over thirty years because he’s stuck with it, but because he loves it. Building bridges is the perfect career for him; the bridges he built were solid, dependable, and quietly amazing, just like Ben Parker.

 

But what everyone would tell you about him is his endless capacity to love. He loved May Reilly since high school, and even though he had to wait years he caught her in the end. He loved his baby brother Richard, even when Richard was taken far too soon. Even when the Government Agents came to the door and said his baby brother was a traitor, he knew they were wrong.

 

And he loved his nephew Peter. When Ben Parker looked at Peter, he knew it didn’t matter in the slightest that May had never had kids, because he already had the best son a man could ask for.

 

Ben Parker loved, and was loved in return. He truly believed that it was a responsibility to do the right thing, which is why he tried to grab a gun from a thief. He had no idea what they guy had done, hadn’t seen the robbery, had no need to get involved, but he did it anyway, because it was just _right_.

 

Ben Parker was a good man, he lived a good life, and so many people loved him for it.

 

Unfortunately, none of this matters anymore, because he died only moments ago.

 

* * *

 

 

_This is just a dream. This is just a dream. It’s just a nightmare and I’m going to wake up!_

 

Peter repeated this mantra over and over in his head as he knelt by his Uncle, screaming for an ambulance. Maybe if he repeated it enough he’d actually believe it.

 

No, he _did_ believe it! He had to, because his Uncle Ben was lying on the ground with a hole in his chest, this _couldn’t be real!_

 

“Oh God, oh God, ohgodohgodohgodohgod!” Peter was sobbing nonsensically over and over. He wasn’t even sure what he was talking about, he just- he didn’t know what to do; he needed someone to help him!

 

Someone touched his shoulder, and he jumped about a foot into the air. For a magical second he thought Uncle Ben had woken up, but he realised it was coming from behind him.

 

He spun round to see a tall blonde guy with his hand on his shoulder, looking at him with concern.

 

“You okay kid?” blondie asked.

 

Peter just shook his head. “Please, you need to help me, it’s my Uncle, please just help!”

 

Blondie knelt down to look at Uncle Ben. He sucked in a breath when he saw the bloody wound. “Aw shit!” he muttered.

 

Suddenly he was on his feet, shouting instructions to passers-by. “You, lady in the blue coat, call an ambulance now! Guy with the glasses, police. Tell ‘em there’s been a shooting.”

 

After he was sure everyone was following his instructions, he knelt down again next to Peter. “Kid,” Blondie said, “Kid, I need you to breath.”

 

Peter managed to tear his eyes away from Uncle Ben to look at the blonde guy, insisting, “I’m fine, I’m fine, it’s my Uncle, he needs help-”

 

“-and an ambulance is coming for him,” Blondie interrupted smoothly. “He’s going to be taken care of kid. But right now you’re going into shock and if you don’t breathe properly there’s going to be two of you going to hospital.”

 

Blondie placed his hands on Peter’s shoulders, forcing him to look at him. “I want you to concentrate of breathing, kid. Don’t think about anything else.”

 

Peter tried to tear himself away, he had to get back to Uncle Ben, but Blondie kept a tight grip on him. Realising he wasn’t going to get away any time soon, he did as Blondie said- breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in-

 

The strange thing was, it was working. He hadn’t even realised how dizzy he’d been until it started to stop. After ten seconds, Blondie nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Go on, talk to him.”

 

Peter was kneeling next to Uncle Ben again in a second. He turned hesitantly to Blondie, slightly afraid of the answer to his next question. “Is he going to…?”

 

Peter tried to finish his sentence, he really did, but he physically choked before he could. Blondie looked grave. “I don’t know kid, but he might still be able to hear you. They say it’s the last thing to go. Talk to him.”

 

Blondie turned his back, busying himself with herding away curious passers-by to give Peter some privacy.

 

“Hey, Uncle Ben? It’s Peter. Um, listen, you were right before; about Dad and about me fighting in school and about everything. I’ll do better; I promise. I’ll… I’ll apologise to Flash, if you want. I’ll do anything, just please please _please_ don’t die!”

 

Vaguely, Peter heard sirens in the distance. But the ambulance was at least twenty minutes too late.

 

* * *

 

 

When the told Peter paramedic told Peter his Uncle was gone, he nodded, but couldn’t quite let himself believe it. It just hadn’t sunk in. Ben Parker couldn’t just have gone, right?

 

It was different when the police told Aunt May what had happened. She believed them right away, it sunk in right away, and she let out a scream like a wounded animal right away.

 

Ever the practical woman, she immediately apologised to the two police officers in her living room, as if grieving for her husband was something one shouldn’t do in front of others. For the rest of the time they were there she simply sobbed as silently as possible.

 

Peter was staring into space in the corner. To be honest, he honestly doubted he would have gotten home if it wasn’t for the Blonde Guy. Blondie had been the one to walk Peter back home; clearly realising he was nearly catatonic. He was stood in the opposite corner to Peter, looking a little awkward but determinedly talking into his phone. Apparently he had some contacts with the police or something like that. Peter hadn’t really heard him; in fact he hadn’t really heard anything since the paramedics had called it.

 

He noticed the police officer showing Aunt May a piece of paper. She looked at it a moment before tearfully shaking her head. “No, no I don’t know who he is,” she said.

 

“I didn’t expect you would mam,” said one of the police officers kindly.

 

Without really realising he was doing it, Peter stepped forward. “Can I have that?”

 

After only a second’s hesitation, the police officer handed him the drawing of the man who killed his uncle. He only had time to register a guy with shoulder length blonde hair before the officer added, “Oh, and there’s something else; he had a tattoo of a star on his left wrist.”

 

It was a minor miracle that Peter’s legs didn’t give way. His stomach certainly dropped to the floor.

 

The guy from the store. The guy with shoulder length blonde hair with sunglasses and a tattoo of a star on his wrist. The guy he could have taken down without even blinking.

 

Holy _shit_!

 

The police officers were already halfway out of the door, but Blondie looked up sharply as Peter started to hyperventilate. “You okay kiddo?”

 

Peter nodded vaguely. Blondie frowned slightly, clearly not convinced, but he didn’t peruse it. Aunt May looked up sharply at the sound of the voice. Without saying a word she got up and pulled Peter into a painfully tight hug.

 

For once, he didn’t care that she was practically crushing his ribcage. He just hugged her back twice as tight, as though he could protect her the way he’d refused to protect Uncle Ben.

 

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Blondie shuffle awkwardly towards the exit. Aunt May clearly sensed movement as well, because she turned to Blondie and said, “I’m so sorry, I never caught your name?”

 

“Barney. Barney Morse, mam,” he said. “I’m sorry; I’ll leave you two alone.”

 

“Wait. Those officers, they said you were the one who took care of Peter?” she asked.

 

Blondie- Barney- smiled a little sheepishly. “Well, it wouldn’t have felt right letting him just find his own way home after what happened.”

 

“Well, thank you, Mr Morse. Thank you for taking care of my boy,” Aunt May said, putting a protective arm round Peter’s shoulders.

 

If it had been merely an hour ago, Peter would have protested that he didn’t need taking care of. But right now he figured he’d done a really terrible job. Every time he tried to take care of himself it seemed someone got hurt, he might as well let someone else take charge.

 

Barney gave a nod, before turning to Peter. “Hey, if you ever need anyone to talk to, just call me.” He held out a piece of paper to Peter, a number written on it.

 

Surprised, Peter shook his head automatically. “Thanks, but I don’t want to be any trouble.”

 

Barney, undeterred, pushed the paper gently into Peter’s hand. “Hey, I went through something similar when I was younger than you. Sometimes, it helps to talk to someone who’s a little detached from the situation. It’s really no bother.”

 

Peter closed his hand round the paper automatically. Barney smiled reassuringly before walking out of the door.

 

* * *

 

 

For a several days, Peter existed in the same semi-catatonic state. Nobody called him out on it, not even at school. He barely heard all the apologies, from the teachers, from Gwen, even frim Flash. Everyone was so freaking _sorry_. Well, not as sorry as he was.

 

He was a little surprised, however, to find Dr Connors sitting on his front steps a few days later. He hadn’t been back to Oscorp since… well, if he hadn’t have been there in the first place he and Uncle Ben would never have had that stupid fight.

 

“Gwen told me about your Uncle. I’m sorry.”

 

Another apology. Peter just nodded. Connors looked a little unconfutable, but carried on, saying, “I remember your father telling me he was a draftsman?”

 

Peter nodded; slightly surprised Connors had remembered all these years. “Bridges, he built bridges,” Peter mumbled.

 

“Bridges are America’s cathedrals. Wonderful creations.” Connors said.

 

Peter really wasn’t sure what to say to that. Unperturbed, Connors added gently, “When you’re ready I hope you’ll come back to the lab. You know you’re always welcome at Oscorp.”

 

The thought of going back to the place that had caused the fatal argument made Peter’s response harsher than he intended. “I’ve got to get inside,” he said shortly.

 

“Peter.” At the sound of his name Peter turned around automatically. Connors was holding out a familiar looking white mouse. Surprised Peter squinted at it.

 

“Is that Fred?” he asked. As soon as he said it, Peter realised it couldn’t be. The lab mouse he was thinking of only had three legs. Unless… no way…

 

“You did it?” Peter said in disbelief.

 

“We did it,” Connors said, clearly as surprised by the development as Peter. He sighed.

 

“You loved your Uncle. Then do something for him, get to work.”

 

Almost unconsciously, one of Uncle Ben’s favourite phrases floated through Peter’s mind. _With great power comes great responsibility._ Would Uncle Ben want him to help people if he could, even if that meant going back to Oscorp?

 

Confused, Peter turned to Dr Connors. “Doing what?”

 

“Build your own cathedrals. Whatever you do, try to remember that… we must be greater than what we suffer,” Connors said, with the air of someone quoting a moto. Looking at the stump of his right arm, Peter realised he probably was.

 

When Connors left, Peter didn’t feel better exactly. But for the first time in ages it seemed that one day he could feel better.

 

* * *

 

 

“So let me get this straight, you revealed yourself to the target, and _gave him your cell phone number_?” Coulson said incredulously.

 

Agent Clint Barton shrugged, unconcerned. “I gave him one of my mission numbers, not my private cell. I’m not an idiot, Phil.”

 

Clint knew that it was only sheer professionalism that stopped Coulson deliberately banging his head on the nearest solid surface. Instead, he simply rolled his eyes in a _give me strength_ gesture.

 

“Barton, you do remember what the concept of ‘undercover’ means, don’t you?”

 

“Vaguely. I think I may have been playing hooky when we covered that- of course I know, Coulson! Unfortunately, you did not include the scenario of your target seeing his father figure murdered in public when you briefed me for this, so forgive me for improvising,” Clint snapped.

 

Coulson shook his head. Frankly, nobody had seen that coming, and he hated being caught off guard. “You think this incident had anything to do with the Mr Parkers current situation?”

 

Clint thought for a second. “Honestly? I think it was just bad luck. Cops seem to think it was random, and I can’t see anything that would suggest otherwise.”

 

“Does he suspect you at all?”

 

“Not that I can tell. To be honest I think I could have been in full gear with the bow without him noticing at that point though. He was pretty cut up.”

 

Coulson was not happy to see a dark look take over Clint’s eyes. “This kid’s a possibly dangerous threat Agent Barton. Now so more than ever. Something like this could push him over the edge.”

 

Coulson realised he’d said the wrong thing. The archer stiffened minutely in his chair, something Coulson had only learnt to notice after years of being his handler.

 

“Coulson, if you thought people who go a little off the rails were irredeemable then I wouldn’t be sitting here. Natasha wouldn’t be here. Hell, half our staff wouldn’t be here. Honestly, he seems like a good kid. Bit of a loner, but hardly a danger.”

 

Coulson frowned. “According to various social media accounts Mr Parker was involved in an incident at school that resulted in him breaking another students arm. This was before the incident with his Uncle. Looks like Mr Parker has a history of violence.”

 

Clint shrugged. He’d seen enough of the incident from his vantage point to catch the gist of it. “So? Kids fight all the time, he just got lucky enough to come out on top. Be honest Coulson, are you suspicious of him because of what you’ve seen, or because protocol says you should be suspicious?”

 

In total honesty, did think Fury was handling this a little on the cautious side. However, Nick Fury was often proved to have been correct to be suspicious in the long run; as Fury was fond of saying, the last time he trusted someone he lost an eye. Besides, there were other factors in this case.

 

“Mr Parker’s affiliation with Dr Curtis Connors is also a problem,” he said.

 

Clint’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Connors? Yeah, I’d been meaning to warn you about that. Come on, I know the guys obsessive, but he’s still SHIELD, right?”

 

“Technically. But Oscorp has always been a bit of a law unto itself. Half the junior scientists don’t even know SHIELD exists. An obsessive scientist under Oscorp is not something we want to encourage. You’re right, Mr Parker is a ‘kid’, and children can be easily manipulated. Right now Connors is in a perfect position to influence him.”

 

Clint sighed. He’d lived off his instincts for too long to just ignore them completely, and right now his instincts were telling him Peter was a good guy. But Clint knew better than most that Coulson was right; good kids could still be manipulated.

 

“There’s another thing,” Clint said. “You said Parker was below average as a physical threat. But earlier, I saw him messing around in a garage, swinging around like something out of a Tarzan movie. Do you have any idea the kind of upper body strength he’d need to be able to hang on without breaking his arms? Physically, it should be impossible for a kid that skinny to be that strong.”

 

Coulson looked puzzled. “You think it’s something that needs looking into?”

 

“I’m not sure. But it’s certainly not the only incident… he managed to smash a glass door pain just by slamming a door really hard; it looked like it was a total accident as well. Even breaking that kids arm would require either a degree of technique or a hell of a lot of brute strength.”

 

“We’ll see if we can find anything. In the meantime, keep an eye on him. Keep your distance this time, he could recognise you. If for any reason he calls you, tell me immediately. You did at least give him a fake name, right?”

 

“Relax Coulson, I’m unconventional, not completely stupid,” Clint said, already out of his chair as the chance to leave presented himself. Coulson had noticed that there were two things about the job Hawkeye avoided like the plague; debriefings and paperwork.

 

Which reminded him; “Clint, don’t forget to fill out the debriefing form, preferably sometime before Mr Parker retires.”

 

“Hey, if you wanted a spy who filled out paperwork with scary efficiency you should have asked Natasha.”

 

“You know as well as I do that Natasha is tied up in Kiev right now, Clint.”

 

“Nah, knowing Natasha the actual tying up won’t be for another week or so,” Clint said, exiting swiftly before he could get landed with more paperwork.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know, there was a stupidly long wait between chapters. Basically: Fresher's. Turns out University takes up a lot of time. I'll try to update more frequently, but I honestly don't know how well that might work out. Don't worry though, this fic will defiantly not die.


	11. Something only I can give

Peter genuinely hadn’t intended to get involved. He’d been out on a walk in an attempt to clear his head; anything to get rid of the image of Aunt May asleep on the couch because she couldn’t face the bed she used to share with Uncle Ben.

 

When he’d heard the shouting, he’d looked over out of curiosity. When he saw a guy with shoulder length blonde hair was the cause of the fracas… well, he’d kind of lost it.

 

Only it wasn’t the guy who killed Uncle Ben. Of course it wasn’t. That would have been too much of a break. Instead of getting a chance to fix his mistake, Peter had ended up being chased by five guys through six blocks. At least he’d found a use for climbing walls, at any rate. Given he’d fallen through a freaking roof into an abandoned building without killing himself, it looked like he could also add ‘durability’ to his list of new abilities as well.

 

However, he was clearly far from invulnerable. He was stiff as hell the next morning, and sporting a couple of pretty impressive bruises under his shirt. He currently was doing his best to eat his cereal before school without wincing. To add insult to injury, they had made it abundantly clear that they had seen his face. He highly doubted they were going to go to the police, but still, it was not the most ideal situation to be in.

 

Looking around for a distraction, Peter noticed the television set was quietly broadcasting a press conference. He moved forward, before turning up the volume excitedly once he realised who was being interviewed.

 

As clique as it sounded, Peter had genuinely been a Tony Stark fanboy _before_ it was cool. Out of everything he’d taken apart over the years (and he had taken apart a lot of objects over the years) he’d realised very early on that the Stark Industries stuff was by far the best engineered. His Aunt and Uncle had learned very early on to let him take apart anything vaguely mechanical, since by the age of ten he usually had it working better than before once he put it back together, but the Stark Industries stuff was usually the exception. You just couldn’t improve on perfection. Usually he just took the stuff apart to learn from it, rather than fix it. If he could ever build something half that cool he could die happy.

 

Then Iron Man happened, and man was Peter itching to have a look at that suit. He’d listened to pretty much every press conference and interview in the hope he could get a hint of just how the thing was made, but Tony Stark was not letting anything slip. Not that Peter blamed him; if he’d been the one to invent that suit than he’d be holding onto it with an iron fist, pun fully intended.

 

Right now both Tony Stark and Iron Man were all over the news. Flushing Meadows Park was finally reopening after being totally trashed two years ago, along with a decent chunk of Queens, by several crappy knock offs of the Iron Man suit during the Stark Expo. Despite the fact that Iron Man had been the one to stop them, several media outlets had decided the resulting damage must obviously be his fault. Stark had responded to this by paying for most of the repairs.

 

However, judging by the tone of some of the reporters, they were still inclined to be annoyed with him. Peter jacked up the volume of the TV just in time to catch a question from a redheaded reporter.

 

“- caused millions of dollars in property damage as well as the deaths of twelve people and the hospitalisation of many more, do you think flinging money at the problem will make it go away?” the redhead asked.

 

Peter winced slightly at the venom behind the question, but Stark’s face remained unreadable, probably because he was wearing a pair of sunglasses that made it impossible to see his eyes.

 

“Look, if you have a problem the collateral damage caused then fine. Next time it all kicks off I’ll leave you guys to fix it. Maybe you could hit them with your Dictaphone, see if that defeats the bad guys. But don’t come crying to me when you get a crater in the middle of New York and a death toll much higher than twelve. You want to throw the blame at Iron Man, see how you like doing without him,” Stark answered.

 

There was a rumble of agreement from a couple of reporters, and a good few more, including the redhead, looked like they would dearly like to punch Stark.

 

A young blonde woman in the crowd of reporters shouted “What do you say to the accusations that none of this would have happened if you had handed the Iron Man suit over to the United States government when asked two years ago?”

 

Stark took off his sunglasses just in time for Peter to catch him rolling his eyes at the question. “Well, I think I’d say ‘I told you so’, given that it was only the fact that my suit was handed over to the government that caused this mess. It was the government that handed it over to an incompetent douchebag who thought he could trust a wanted criminal who trashed a sports stadium, than acted surprised when he trashed somewhere else. I’d say that this is exactly why I did not want to work for those ass-clowns in the first place.”

 

The blonde looked slightly triumphant, and Peter got the feeling she’d been expecting a rant like that. Then again, they were hardly uncommon in interviews featuring Tony Stark. The previous ‘Stark calls US Senators ass-clowns’ video had gone viral in less than an hour, but Peters personal favourite had been his rant on Justin Hammer several months ago, if only for coining the terms ‘Dick-sack’, ‘Nube-Whistler’ and ‘Hammeroides’. That had been an entertaining one.

 

“So you’re saying that you’re only willing to assist as long as you are unable to be held accountable for anything you do as Iron Man?” The blonde reporter asked.

 

“Who said anything about zero accountability? If I didn’t have the ability to work with people stupider than me I’d never talk to anyone, and that would be dull. Besides, I have people working with me who would kill me before the government had even managed to get through my front door,” Stark said. He stood up, waving to someone off camera, “Right honey?”

 

The camera panned shakily to show a redheaded woman clutching at a clipboard who he assumed was Virginia Potts, the woman Stark had made CEO of his company to much media speculation right before the incident. She gave a strained smile, nodding. She looked very much like she’d happily kill him now, never mind if he messed up.

 

The camera panned back around to show the blonde reporter looking slightly annoyed at what Peter recognised as an evasion of the actual question. “But you’re saying that you’re happy for Iron Man to be a glorified vigilante?” she pressed.

 

Stark sighed, looking annoyed. “Look” he said, sounding a lot more sincere that a moment ago “I’m not trying to go above the law, really. If any office government organisation has a proposal for me that doesn't sound like something a five year old could beat, then good; I’m ready to listen. But in the meantime, while the suits argue and the military guys rush in with no idea what their getting into then I’ll be covering your asses. Not looking for trouble, but clearing it up when it comes.”

 

The camera Stark was facing zoomed in, and for a second Peter could swear Stark was looking directly at him. “This suit, Iron Man, this is something I could use for prophet, sell off to the highest bidder just like I used to sell weapons to the highest bidder. Or instead I could use it to do something good. The things the government can’t do. And if taking some dam responsibility and giving something only I can give to take down the threats that the police, the military, the government can’t control makes me a vigilante, then fine. Maybe if we all took that responsibility then threats like Ivan Vanko wouldn’t happen.”

 

There was a loaded silence from the reporters and from Peter. The reporters because getting a truly sincere response from Tony Stark was like trying to perform open heart surgery on a grumpy bear with a toothpick and a chisel; impractical, dangerous, frustratingly difficult and dam near impossible. Peter because Stark’s words were still running around his head.

 

_Something only I can give._

 

There was a tutting noise from the doorway, and Peter very nearly jumped, being so engrossed in the TV. His Aunt May was stood in the doorway, frowning at the TV screen. She usually got that expression whenever she heard Stark speaking. Peter got the feeling she didn’t particularly approve of some of the… wilder aspects of the man’s personality. She certainly didn’t seem comfortable with Peter’s admiration of the man, though the frequent profanity that usually came in hand with Stark speaking may have had a hand in that.

 

Before he could stop himself, Peter was thinking that if Uncle Ben was here he would roll his eyes and say Peter was hardly likely to be corrupted by someone they’d never met. Then he’d probably get him another piece of Iron Man merchandise, because Peter swore he enjoyed winding up Aunt May with that stuff.

 

He promptly shut off that train of thought as his stomach twisted painfully like it always did when he thought of Uncle Ben. Instead he turned around, raising an eyebrow questioningly at Aunt May. “What?” he said.

 

“You know what,” she responded, “Encouraging people to take the law into their own hands like that. It’s a slippery slope, mark my words.”

 

Peter wanted to argue, but knew from experience he wouldn’t be the one to come out on top. “Yeah, you’re probably right,” he said.

 

But what he was thinking was _something only I can give._

 

* * *

 

 

_You have got to be kidding me_.

 

That was Phil Coulson’s first thought as he stared at the phone he was holding.

 

“I’m sorry, could you say that again?” he said as politely as he could.

 

“Yup, that’s what I said when I got the call out,” said Captain Stacy on the other end of the line. Phil had only met the New York police chief once; he had been the one to brief Captain Stacy of the existence of SHIELD once he had climbed high enough in the police forces ranks. Stacy didn’t know even close to the full extent of SHIELD’s work, but he knew of their existence and knew to call if things got out of hand.

 

Most of the time the police didn’t bother, leaving SHIELD to have to take charge by force. This of course gave them a bad rep with the police, making them more reluctant to call them in. Self-perpetuating cycles were nothing if not annoying.

 

The rest of the time they were usually called in over some nonsense conspiracy theory the police could have easily handled given enough time. Normally he’d presume this was one of those times, but the Captain had claimed he’d seen it himself and from what little he knew of him he didn’t strike Coulson as the type to needlessly exaggerate.

 

Captain Stacy continued. “Basically, we’ve got a guy tied up in a giant spiders web, at least twenty foot wide, and yes; it looks as a strange as it sounds.”

 

Coulson sighed. “I’m guessing this has something to do with the spider man everyone is talking about.”

 

“Gee, no wonder you guys are such specialists with deduction skills like that,” Captain Stacy snarked, though not particularly maliciously.

 

“You close to finding him?”

 

“About as close as we are to catching the abominable snowman. But since we’ve never actually seen him do the deed we don’t have enough to issue an arrest warrant yet, not since we don’t know his identity.”

 

Coulson sighed again. This was going to be a long morning. “I’ll send a team right away,” he said, before hanging up the phone.

 

He was going to need another dam coffee.

 

* * *

 

 

Two months later. Exactly thirty two criminals, white males with shoulder length blonde hair. Not one of them with a tattoo of a star on their hand.

 

But Peter had been busy in that time. First off had been the mask. Much as it pained him to admit it, he wasn’t Tony Stark. He couldn’t just announce he was a superhero to the world and waltz off, pausing only to insult the government on the way out. Best case scenario; he’d be arrested, and the first guys he had tried had made it clear that showing his face was a disadvantage. He’d based it on one of those old wrestling masks at first.

 

Then there had been the webbing. Dr Connors had been nearly right; it had taken him just under three weeks to recreate it himself. Developing the web shooters; that had been the difficult part. Thank God for Aunt May working the late shift the last few weeks, even after managing to cover up everything that had been going on the last few weeks he didn’t think he would be able to explain the number of small fire’s caused by malfunctioning prototypes.

 

It was around the time he started to use the web shooters that the press interest had really started to pick up. A vigilante targeting criminals was one thing, a super strong vigilante who could swing from building to building like a spider was quite another. The press and the public, with a lack of a real name, had christened him ‘Spiderman’.

 

Spiderman. Personally, he rather liked it. It was certainly more apt than they realised.

 

It was the name that had inspired the costume. After seeing a couple of videos of himself swinging into the distance on YouTube (and boy was that a sentence he never thought he’d ever say) he’d realised hiding his face wasn’t enough. His clothes could just as easily be recognised, and even if they couldn’t jeans and sweatshirts were surprisingly cumbersome swinging from building to building. The spandex suit allowed for freer movement, even if it was a little tight around the crotch.

 

Which was why he now found himself in the back of a car that was currently in the process of being stolen, whilst the thief (white male, shoulder length blonde hair) looked at him with the most open mouthed expression of surprise Peter had ever seen.

 

“You know,” Peter said conversationally, “In the future, if you’re gonna steal cars don’t dress like a car thief, man!”

 

“You a cop?” the guy asked him, looking worried. Peter just barely resisted the urge to facepalm.

 

“Seriously? You really think I’m a cop? A cop _in a skin-tight red and blue suit?_ You have the mind of a true scholar sir,” he said, shooting web in the guy’s face, just in case it wasn’t abundantly clear that he _was not a cop!_

 

The guy was clearly more sensible than he sounded; because he decided no would be a good time to move. Peter carried on unconcerned, repeatedly pulling the door shut with his webbing as he did so.

 

“You know, I was thinking you were more one of the guys that did the heavy lifting, but there you go. Oh good thinking, go out the window,” he added, as the car thief did exactly that.

 

Peter stretched, unconcerned. He was going to rather enjoy this

 

* * *

 

 

It took the cops a couple of minutes do disperse as Spiderman swung away across the bridge, whooping joyfully. They had spent a lot of that time trying to work out how the heck to detach the car thief from the wall. They’d finally managed it, and were currently being berated by their superior around the corner, who was making a rather valid point about thirty eight cops vs a guy in a unitard.

 

Clint Barton spent those few moment wondering when the fuck his job had gotten so surreal. Seriously, when had ‘get in, shoot, get out’ become so unpopular. When he had started following Parker again, he’d been expecting there to be something suspicious.

 

This went beyond suspicious. This was… this was…

 

The kid was freaking _Spiderman_ , dude! Where the hell had that curveball come from?

 

After a few minutes, he finally pulled out his phone.

 

“Coulson; I think you’re gonna want to hear this. You might want to sit down.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick update between essays here. Massive shout out to OkamiPrincess who guessed Peter would be a total Tony Stark fanboy a few chapters ago. Poor Coulson, this is going to cause a lot of paperwork.


	12. Paved with good intentions

“Cross species genetics is finally working. I’ve used the lizard DNA to help Freddy regrown that limb,” Dr Connors explained, gesturing to the now completely ordinary lab mouse.

 

Dr Ratha fingered the vial of lizard serum in disbelief. “It’s a miracle,” he muttered.

 

“No, its hard work and promise” Connors corrected tetchily, and Dr Ratha rolled his eyes. Dam scientists, always so pedantic. He didn’t care how they got the results, as long as they got them.

 

Connors continues, oblivious to Ratha’s impatience. “And it’s a step closer to the primates’ lab.”

 

This was exactly what Dr Ratha meant; pedantic. “He doesn't have time for every little step,” Ratha explained, feeling rather like he was talking to a small child. The very thought irritated; if he had wanted to spend his life explaining simple concepts to people who should know better he would have had children of his own.

 

“Little?” Connors questioned indignantly.

 

“I just mean we can’t afford to wait”

 

“Well he’ll have to,” said Connors, like he thought that was actually an option. Then again, the man was obtuse enough that he probably did think it was an option. On second thoughts, children would probably have been less frustrating. “Unless he wants to be a lab rat.”

 

“That’s not what I’m saying. You have to start human trials; now,” Ratha explained, picking up on of the vials. He didn’t know why he bothered; he knew exactly what the man was going to say.

 

Sure enough, Connors reply was a firm, “No I don’t. No I won’t.”

 

“Oh then he’s going to die,” Ratha said levelly.

 

“People die. Even Norman Osborn.”

 

Ratha very nearly laughed at that, which was a good idea of how ludicrous he found the statement. Dr Ratha was not a man inclined to laughter; men who had laughed at things Norman Osborn took seriously generally found themselves in rather… _difficult_ situations.

 

“You have been here a long time, Curtis. Do you honestly think that Norman Osborn is classified as merely _people_? If you do you are more naïve than I thought. You know how the Security Council values his good work. If he were to die with it unfinished- well, that would be a pity for all of us, wouldn’t it?”

 

Connors either missed the implied threat or choose to ignore it, picking up his files and heading for the door.

 

“We are not finished,” Ratha said, a note of anger creeping in to his previously carefully controlled voice for the first time.

 

Connors bristled at the tone. “Where are you going to find the volunteers?” he snapped.

 

Ratha looked genuinely surprised at the question. “For what? As far as anyone is concerned it is for a winter flu shot,” he said, holding the vial of lizard formula at eye level almost teasingly. “I might think the veterans hospital the place to start.”

 

Dr Connors’s eyes visibly widened in shock. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said.

 

“I don’t think I am.”

 

“Do you seriously think anyone is going to fall for that? Best case scenario, we have several people who wake up with mysteriously regenerated limbs. Worst case scenario… do you honestly think that they’ll accept that a flu shot could have such devastating side effects.”

 

“Of course not. Believe it or not, not everyone is as naïve as you Curtis. Whether the serum works or not, we will be able to tidy up the results,” Ratha explained mildly, as though he were discussing the weather, rather than illegally experimenting on human beings.

 

Connors shook his head in disbelief. “I refuse to believe that SHIELD would assist you in this.”

 

This time Ratha actually did let out a mild laugh. For some reason, this worried Dr Connors more than his cavalier discussion of human testing. “Who said anything about SHIELD? We have our own resources; we have done for quite some time.”

 

Dr Connors was literally struck speechless. Rather than say something he would regret he took a step towards the door. Dr Ratha reached out, grabbing him by the stump of his right arm.

 

Connors froze. It was an unspoken rule that nobody touched what remained of his right arm, very few people even stood on his right side. Standing there with Dr Ratha gripping it firmly, particularly in light of the discussion they had been having moments before, Dr Connors suddenly felt acutely vulnerable.

“It’s a little late for shock and indignation Curt; about fifteen years too late.”

 

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” Dr Connors snapped reflexively, but he was suddenly reluctant to meet Dr Ratha’s eyes.

 

Dr Ratha didn’t fail to notice this, and pressed his new found advantage accordingly. “Richard Parker wore it well, on you it’s a cheap suit. Did you tell the boy you had nothing to do with it? Did you really think SHIELD controlled us after that?”

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

 

“You don’t know, or you don’t _want_ to know? Then I’ll tell you; Richard Parker said just about the same thing then as you are saying now. The clock is ticking, Dr Connors.”

 

Dr Ratha could sense Dr Connors wavering. “I…” Connors stammered hesitantly.

 

There was a pause, Dr Ratha leaning forward expectantly. But then Dr Connors seemed to come to a decision, finally looking him in the eye again.

 

“I won’t!” he hissed.

 

“Fine,” Ratha snarled. “The formula is ours now anyway. Say goodbye to that arm you dreamed of; I’m shutting you down. Have your office cleaned out by the morning.”

 

He picked up the remaining formula and left, leaving Dr Connors with an empty lab.

 

* * *

 

 

“So just explain this to me one more time?” Coulson said.

 

Clint thought that it was darn lucky Coulson was his favourite, because if any other handler had made that request they would have gotten an arrow through the eye by now. He’d already explained twice.

 

“I’m positive Coulson. The. Kid. Is. Spiderman.” He said through his teeth.

 

Coulson sighed, taking a long gulp of his coffee. “Well, that’s bad. I don’t think we have a form for that.”

 

Trust Coulson to remain completely unflappable in the face of the bat-shit insane. “Wait, Phil Coulson doesn't have the correct paperwork? Fuck me; it must be the end of days. If you need me I’ll be in the bunker,” Clint said in his best mock panic. Coulson just raised an eyebrow, entirely used to Clint’s sarcasm.

 

“I don’t think the Hellicarrier comes with a bunker, Agent Barton.”

 

“Coulson, the Hellicarrier is run by Fury. The bunker probably has a bunker.”

 

The sad thing was Clint was probably bang on the money, which only succeeded in making Coulson more irritated.

 

“Well, this complicates things,” Coulson said, and Clint rolled his eyes.

 

“Gee, ya think boss? How the hell did you not realise we we’re tracking Spiderman?”

 

Coulson pulled out his Stark Tablet (apparently Stark had wanted to call them IronPads, but Fury had vetoed the name) and slid it across the table to Clint. It showed a fuzzy security video of Parker entering what looked like a lab.

 

“There’s no security cameras in that lab, so we can’t be sure,” Coulson said, “But we think Mr Parker must have been bitten by one of the spiders that used to reside in that lab.”

 

“The ones bred for Connors program? I thought we destroyed those?” Clint asked.

 

Coulson smiled thinly. “Not destroyed; confiscated. We just needed Connors to believe they were out of the picture. And not confiscate until after the incident you are seeing. We knew Mr Parker had been inside the lab, we needed to see what he’d been exposed to. But we were expecting that if he’d been bitten his extraction would be in a body bag, so to speak. If he was bitten, he is the first successful example of cross species genetics.”

 

Clint let out a low whistle. “Son of a bitch, that crazy idiot did it after all. You think he and Connors knew this would happen?”

 

“Either that or it was a very lucky coincidence. Either way, what they now have access to could be even bigger than Project Rebirth.”

 

“And that’s a bad thing?” Clint asked cautiously. Seeing Coulson’s expression, he raised his hands in a pantomime of surrender. “Hey, I’m not the brains here, just the looks and the muscle. It’s a genuine question.”

 

Coulson sighed. It was a fair enough point. They were letting Dr Banner run around with only light supervision after all; Clint wasn’t to know if this would this would be a similar situation.

 

He flicked the screen of the tablet, moving onto another video. This one was shaky camera footage of Spiderman swinging from a rooftop. “That webbing he’s using; we’re pretty sure it’s the bio-cable developed at Oscorp. We’re not sure how he’s dispersing it, but we’re pretty sure it’s Oscorp stuff as well. At the very least, he’s guilty of using stolen technology. He’s also attacked over thirty people in the last few months. All criminals, all matching a certain physical description. We’re not sure why; could be altruism, could be a vendetta, could be something else. We’re not sure what side Mr Parker is on.”

 

Clint sighed. “You want me to bring him in?”

 

To any other handler, this would have been a perfectly logical question. But Coulson had known Clint long enough to realise he was a pragmatist; the fact his first question was not ‘Want me to take him out?’ said rather more than Clint had intended.

 

Coulson, however, knew Clint would not give him an answer if he asked for one. Instead he simply answered, “Not yet. Keep tailing him. If he calls the number you gave him don’t give anything away. We need know which side he’s on before we can decide on a course of action.”

 

At that point, Coulson’s cell phone rang. Recognising Sitwell’s number, he answered quickly. “Hello?”

 

“Turn on the TV.”

 

“Hello to you to, Jasper,” Coulson said, knowing his colleague and friend would understand the desire for elaboration for what it was.

 

“Seriously Coulson, turn on the news. If I tell you you’ll just send me for a psychiatric evaluation.”

 

Well, that was never a good start to a conversation. Coulson turned on the TV. The second he saw what was going on he realised why Sitwell had made him look for himself. Apparently, his job had gotten even more insane.

 

Clint swore in the background. “What the- Coulson, please tell me we’re on some shitty _Candid Camera_ show?”

 

Coulson picked up the phone that connected to the secretary outside. “Marcy, call Director Fury. And get some more coffee in here; I think we’re gonna need it.”

 

* * *

* * *

 

Despite his earlier statement, Dr Ratha had no intention of firing Dr Connors. Honestly, who else would know even a quarter of what Connors knows about cross species genetics? Who would be willing to believe it would work, even with the serum? Many would dismiss it on principle. No, Dr Ratha had no intention of letting Curtis Connors go. The man would come crawling back, willing to test the serum on whoever Ratha told him to. After all, Dr Ratha was not the man with everything to lose here.

 

Perhaps if Curt Connors had stopped long enough to think properly, he would have realised this. Perhaps then things would have worked out very differently. But even the most genius of human beings are susceptible to panic, and Curt Connors was panicking more than he had panicked in a very long time.

 

He had worked for decades on cross species genetics, suffered the isolation that came from perusing a field considered no more than science fiction, lost his best friend in an accident he didn’t dare analyse to closely to this day. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a conversation with his wife that had lasted more than five minutes, the last time he’d been alone with his son Billy. He slept most night at the lab, working late; when was the last time he’d been at home for more than a few hours?

 

All of this, just for the chance to feel _whole_ again. To have that within his grasp- he would not have it snatched away. It was simply not an option.

 

But he could not allow human testing on the unknowing. He’d compromised too many times over the years. He owed it to Richard, to Peter, not to sully their discovery. He’d been desperate in the past, agreed to things Oscorp demanded that he had felt uneasy about, but he could, _would_ stand firm on this.

 

He needed a solution, and he needed it fast.

 

Dr Connors had never believed in miracles. He’d always been a rational man, and what little faith he had had been taken from him the day he lost his arm. He believed that nothing came without hard work and research.

 

Which is why when the solution came to him, he didn’t quite believe it at first. There must be a catch; there was always a catch.

 

But finding that catch required time, and time was not a luxury he had anymore. It was the best chance he had; the only chance he had.

 

Dr Ratha had taken the serum, but not the formula, and the formula was all he needed. After decades of searching, creating a new batch took no time at all.

 

Taking a deep breath, he injected himself with his the serum.

 

* * *

 

 

Peter looked out over the balcony onto the streets of New York, trying to ignore the urge to jump of and swing out of there.

 

He was on a date with Gwen Stacy. _Gwen Stacy_. Gorgeous, clever, wonderful Gwen. Not just a going out for a coffee date either; a meeting the in laws kind of date. That was huge; seriously huge. It meant she actually really liked him. Really, seriously liked him, the way he’d liked her for so long. All he had to do was not screw it up.

 

So obviously he got into an argument with her dad. Who was a cop. About Spiderman. _Who her dad was trying to arrest._

 

_You had one job, Parker. One job. Why don’t you just web him to the celling, it’s probably more subtle!_ He thought to himself.

 

He turned to Gwen, who was currently gazing over the balcony next to him. Gwen. His girlfriend. It was all he could do not to grin dopily every time he remembered that he was actually dating Gwen. Honestly, he found that more surreal than the whole Spiderman thing. Which he was really going to have to explain. He owed her an explanation for the whole ‘in defence of Spidy’ rant earlier. Plus the bruised. Plus his constantly falling asleep in class. Plus him never knowing which day of the week it was. God, he owed her a lot of explanations…

 

Gwen turned to look at him. “What happened to your face?”

 

Okay, perfect opening. “I’m gonna tell you something,” he said.

 

Then he remembered that this story was absolutely insane and he had no idea where to start. Right, he knew there had been a reason he’d been putting it off.

 

“I’ve been bitten-” he started, then broke off, physically wincing. I’ve been bitten. What the hell kind of opening was that?

 

Gwen was looking at him expectantly. Okay, try again. “Okay, okay, okay, okay-” _stop saying okay!_ “I’ve got to tell you this one thing… It’s about the vigilante and the car thief.”

 

Okay, that one just sounded like the start of a bad joke. Gwen was starting to look annoyed. He didn’t blame her, he was totally killing the moment. He was annoying himself as well.

 

“Okay, forget that, I’m not going to talk about that; I’m going to talk about me. I… I… it’s hard to say…”

 

And that was when his brain to mouth filter shut down. Great, he could climb walls but speech defeated him. Thank you superpower lottery.

 

“Just say it,” Gwen said, “Just _say_ it!”

 

He shook his head, trying to remember how to get the words from his brain to his mouth. Gwen shook her head, moving to the other end of the balcony, turning her back on him.

 

Okay, screw talking. Time to try something less subtle.

 

Before he could lose his courage, he shot out a length of web, sticking it to Gwen’s skirt. He pulled, spinning her towards him and catching her like a ballroom dancer.

 

Now it was Gwen’s turn to lose the ability to articulate. She just gasped, eyes wide with shock.

 

_Hu, so that’s what that looks like,_ he thought. Though he imagined he didn’t look nearly as cute as Gwen when he did it.

 

There was a second where neither of them were in any state to speak. Peter broke it by kissing her. He wasn’t sure what she’d do, but to his relief she kissed him back as hard as ever.

 

The moment was broken as Gwen’s mom came in to fetch her. Gwen was half way to the door when he heard it.

 

Sirens.

 

The more cautions part of Peter Parker urged him to stay put. It wasn’t his problem, and he had to explain properly to Gwen, with words and everything this time.

 

But another part of him was thinking: _something only I can give._

 

Looking over the balcony, he saw Captain Stacy rushing out of his front door, jumping into a waiting police car. If they were calling out the Captain to the scene when he was off duty it must be pretty serious. But the cops could handle it, it was their job.

 

Right?

 

_Something only I can give._

 

He jumped off the balcony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprisingly quick update! This is what happens when I can't sleep.


	13. Comes Great Responsibility

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own anything from the Marvel Universe or Spiderman. If I did I would have be much richer. I'm just borrowing these guys for a while.

The citizens of New York had dealt with a lot over the past few years. First there had been Iron Man; sure, they could deal with that. It was just the way technology was going, and it was hardly the worst thing Tony Stark had been caught doing in public.

 

Then there was Harlem- frankly, nobody was really sure just quite what the hell had happened in Harlem. The big green guy from the Culver incident had been fighting… well, either nobody knew or nobody was willing to admit they knew. Theories ranged from an alien to animal testing gone freakishly wrong to the green guy’s evil twin. That was a little harder to adjust to.

 

The Stark Expo incident had been when people had really started to get pissed off. Could they not go one year without an incident that sounded like the plot of a really terrible movie? Plus, they were still cleaning up after that one. Even though Stark had ended up funding repairs and a few improvements to the city that weren’t really caused by the suits but they needed anyway the public opinion had remained frosty. The recorded number of traffic jams caused by the ridiculous amount of cranes working about the city hadn’t helped.

 

The Spiderman thing was something people hadn’t quite made their minds up about yet. Right now, the most common reaction was for people to point and go ‘ooh!’ like a child with a short attention span.

 

However, the people of New York could pretty much unanimously agree that the giant lizard throwing cars off of the bridge was the worst one yet, for surrealism if nothing else.

  

* * *

 

 

Okay, either Peter was hallucinating again, or there was a giant lizard on the bridge.

 

He hoped it was the hallucinations, he really did. Obviously, that meant that there was a giant lizard, because Peter Parker was currently the drawing in the dictionary for ‘sods law’.

 

_Where the hell did we get a giant lizard from?_ Peter wondered. Escaped from the zoo? Nah, there was no species anywhere near that big in the world. Another Hulk creature like the one in Harlem maybe? That certainly seemed more likely.

 

Jesus, when had a Mutant Hulk Lizard become the more likely hypothesis? Probably when God had figured giving him spider powers hadn’t been surreal enough.

 

This was out of his league. He dealt with petty criminals, most of them pretty stupid. He wasn’t a super hero, he wasn’t Iron Man, he was a kid in a spandex unitard that was out past curfew and still needed to pick up some dam eggs. He should let someone else handle it.

 

But who else could handle this? This was gonna be as surreal for the cops as it was for him, and he couldn’t just wait for a real hero to arrive. The thing was starting to pick up cars, and Peter could see what was going to happen. He shoved his clothing into his backpack, revealing his Spiderman costume that he wore underneath.

 

Peter jumped just in time to catch the first car in his webbing as the Lizard tossed it from the bridge.

 

He checked each car quickly for occupant, having to move on swiftly as the Lizard was working up quite the tossing rhythm. Most were empty; as luckily most people reacted sensibly to seeing the Lizard on the highway; by running and screaming like crazy.

 

He’d caught up with the Lizard by the time he was holding the sixth car aloft. Peter swung forward, and with a shout of ‘Incoming!’ he swung with all his strength into the lizard, kicking him to the ground and catching the sixth car mid-air with his web. He attached the webbing to the bridge, before turning to look at his scaly opponent. He could see that the Lizard was more humanoid than he had first thought, pulling himself up onto two legs. The face was human enough to be slightly familiar, and… wait, was he shedding his skin?

 

Peter was distracted by the shouting by one of the few people still on the bridge.

 

“Help! Somebody help, my kid is trapped!”

 

The guy shouting was looking down at one of the cars. Peter cursed himself; he’d scanned all the cars for occupants but he’d been in too much of a rush to do it properly. He must have missed someone. Shooting a last look at the now escaping Lizard, he jumped down to the car.

 

* * *

 

 

All in all, the entire incident, from the Lizard arriving to Spiderman fleeing the scene took no more than five minutes. So by the time SHIELD arrived the incident was long over. All that was left to do was to debrief the witnesses.

 

Debriefing was Coulson’s department, or Natasha’s if she had been here, so Clint just stood on the edge of the bridge, bow out, scanning for the mysterious Lizard. He didn’t expect to find anything though.

 

He sensed someone behind him, whirling around. Most people would have fallen straight off the bridge and into the water turning that fast, but Clint just spun almost elegantly and jumped onto the road to face his handler.

 

“You find out what the hell happened?” he asked.

 

Coulson sighed. Contrary to what crime shows would have people believed, witness testimony was far from one hundred percent reliable. For instance, falsely identifying a suspect was surprisingly common. With an incident this large and this many witnesses he hardly ever heard the same story twice.

 

Tonight was no exception. Basically, his witnesses agreed Spiderman and a giant lizard had been there. They could not agree what the heck they’d been doing.

 

Some people claimed that Spiderman had fought the Lizard off. Others said they had been working together. Some people claimed the Lizard had been throwing cars at Spiderman; others said he had been throwing them _to_ the wall-crawler. All they knew for certain was that several junior agents who had probably managed to get themselves on Hill’s shit list this week were currently having a very difficult time extracting said cars from said webbing. Apparently that stuff was quite sticky in places, since they were also attempting to extract another junior agent from the webbing.

 

Some people had claimed there were multiple lizards. If Coulson believed that the thing had been in every place the witnesses had claimed it was at the time they said it was then there would have to be. But the more likely explanation was that the witnesses were just too panicked to have registered everything that had happened. One guy had claimed Spiderman had pulled his son from a burning car. Another had claimed that Spiderman had attempted to push her off the bridge. Someone else had vehemently insisted that it had been the Hulk on the bridge; he assumed they’d just registered ‘weird green thing’ and nothing else about the attackers’ appearance, because latest reports put Banner in Calcutta, with no ‘incidents’ for the last nine months.

 

The bottom line; no, they had no idea what the hell happened. They had no idea who was responsible for the mess in front of them. But like most government employees, SHIELD agents weren't really allowed to say ‘we’ve no clue out loud’. Seriously; it was in the handbook.

 

So Coulson simply raised an eyebrow at Clint, who smirked, clearly having read the none-verbal negative.

 

“Have we found anything yet?” Coulson asked, gesturing to the webbing that had now ensnared no less than three junior agents. No wonder they couldn’t work out what happened if that was the calibre of agents they had to work with.

 

“They found a body in one of the vehicles,” Clint reported, “Head smashed against the windshield, not pretty. Looked like one of those really disturbing infomercials about why seatbelts are the best thing since sliced bread and all that.”

 

Coulson nodded, used to Clint’s habit of happily rambling nonsensically before getting to the actual point. Clint carried on; “We’ve identified him as Dr Rajit Ratha, and here’s the interesting part: he’s one of the highest in the Oscorp pecking order.”

 

“You think this was a targeted attack?” Coulson asked.

 

“Seems a bit of a coincidence at least,” Clint replied.

 

Frankly, this entire case seemed to be a little too full of coincidences for Coulson’s liking. Suddenly he wished he was still working with Stark, and if that wasn’t the first sign of a mental breakdown then nothing was.

 

“Second thing,” Clint said, “Is that we’ve managed to find some skin samples from the Lizard- look, are we _really_ calling this guy the Lizard now? Anyway, the labs are taking a look at it. Hopefully it should give us an idea what we’re dealing with.”

 

“Should do, but it will take a while,” Coulson responded. The problem with working with phenomenon unseen on Earth before meant the lab often had to make up tests on the fly, which naturally took a bit of time. It could be weeks before they figured out anything significant.

 

“We need you to step up the surveillance on Parker,” Coulson said.

 

Clint frowned slightly. “You think the kid had a role in this?”

 

“Oh he had a role in it; we just have no idea which side he was on. At least half the witnesses we’ve spoken to claim he was working with the Lizard; the other half claims he was fighting him. Which side do we believe?”

 

“Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but the last time we relied on witness testimony for this kind of event was the Moscow fiasco, and we all know how that went,” Clint said with a frown.

 

“Really,” said Coulson, a wry smile coming to his lips, “I though the last time was Budapest.”

 

Clint glared. “Coulson; we agreed. Budapest did not happen. It was a fantasy created by the Matrix and in no way related to real life events; that’s my story, it’s what I put in the mission report and I’m sticking to it.”

 

He wasn’t exaggerating. Possibly the most difficult part of Phil Coulson’s career so far had to be explaining that mission report to Fury without laughing- particularly when they got to the part about the Terminators. Honestly, Clint Barton sure knew how to put the ‘ass’ in ‘assassin’ sometimes.

 

“Anyway, the point is we need to know for sure which side this kid is on. Find out,” Coulson said.

 

He would have left it at that, but the expression on Clint’s face told him that the archer was thinking this through and finding a problem with this plan.

 

“Something wrong Agent?” Coulson ask. Clint shook his head.

 

“Nah, plan’s fine by me. Which is what’s so confusing- I’d expect Fury to order a hit now just in the off chance of him being behind this,” the archer said, gesturing to the carnage in front of them (now including a grand total of eight SHIELD agents, a couple anything but junior, tangled in the webbing. There would be a few demotions by dawn).

 

Coulson paused for a moment before answering. “Honestly, I’d think he’d assume that we’d know to carry out that order automatically. But if we’re really dealing with genetically engineered rage monsters and alien gods and junior Godzilla’s- we can’t afford to alienate a potentially powerful alley. Mr Parker gets one chance.”

 

The sentence was left dangling, leaving no doubt what would happen to Peter Parker if that chance didn’t pan out.

 

Clint nodded, turning presumably to track Parker. Coulson sighed, before turning to the direction of the SHILED agent’s behind him.

 

“You three, go help out with the webbing. And for God’s sake- use gloves.”

 

* * *

 

 

Sometimes, when life gets to insane, the sensible thing to do is just to take a moment and _stop._ Just sit and think. At least, that’s what Peter told himself. The fact that he had been sitting in the same position in the corner of his room for the last hour staring at the locked door without moving meant he was being sensible- he was defiantly _not_ having a nervous breakdown.

 

This would be totally fine, of course. After all, he’d just nearly _died_ , the kid had nearly died; if he’d been a second longer in that car, or had let go a second earlier, of been just a fraction slower with the webbing…

 

Yup, he was defiantly not having a nervous breakdown. He was completely and utterly fine.

 

_“Jack, climb, now!”_

_“I can’t!”_

_“Yes you can!”_

 

He’d never saved anyone like that before. Oh sure, sometimes he’d stopped things from happening by showing up; muggings or attacks or probably worse. He’d always thought that was saving people, but now he thought about it Peter realised that he hadn’t been saving those people- he’d just been going after the guys doing the bad things. The fact that he’d stopped bad things happening to people- it was a side effect, a lucky coincidence, nothing more.

 

This had been different. He could have gone after the giant Lizard- but instead he went after the kid. Really, he didn’t know why. The Lizard could have killed more people whilst he was saving one kid. But he still did it. Because it was right.

 

_“If you can do good things for other people you have a moral obligation to do those things. That’s what’s at stake here; not choice- responsibility.”_

 

God, he’d thought that was a load of hypocritical bullshit when he heard it- of course it was a choice. There was always a choice.

 

He realised now that he’d only been half right. Yes, there was always a choice. The right thing, the responsible thing was always a choice you could make. Yes, there would be other choices.

 

Uncle Ben hadn’t meant he didn’t have a choice; just that he needed to pick the right choice. That the other choices sucked, led to mess and destruction. That you had to choose responsibly.

 

He could stand back and let bad things happen. He could do bad things in the name of revenge and justify them because they occasionally had some good side effects. Or he could help.

 

But there was another choice in there, wasn’t there.

 

_“-Take some dam responsibility and give something only I can give.”_

 

He could sit back and wait until he happened upon an incident- or he could actively help. Not look for trouble, but go to it when he appeared.

 

The spider’s had been destroyed. There would probably never be someone like him again. All this power and he was the only one who would ever be able to use it.

 

The greater the power, the greater the responsibility.

 

Could he do that? Really? He might be super-powered, but he was just a kid. Heck, he could hardly keep track of his life as it was. The world already had superhero’s, what difference would another one make?

 

But none of those superhero’s had been on the bridge tonight. One kid. One kid had been the difference. If he could save one kid each time, that _was_ a difference.

 

Right?

 

_“Who are you?”_

 

_“I’m Spiderman.”_

“I’m Spiderman.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wahoo, the new chapter is finally here. I'm aiming to get at least one more before Christmas, possibly more, so stay tuned! Also, big thanks to all the wonderful comments and responses for this fic. I've been truly overwhelmed by how much people seem to be enjoying this, and I can honestly say I'm enjoying writing it. Since the last update this fic had passed the 100 kudo's mark, which is amazing! Please, keep the feed back coming.


	14. Things are looking up (or not)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own anything from the Marvel Universe or Spiderman. If I did I would have be much richer. I'm just borrowing these guys for a while. I did, however, put Spidy in the MCU around a year before the guys at Marvel studios managed it, so if those guys want to give me a cut; I'm good with that.

  You could say several things for SHIELD, and one of them was that they worked dam quickly when they wanted to. Captain Stacy hadn’t particularly wanted to check his course of action with SHIELD- he’d been doing this job long enough to know that once a decision had been made it must be kept with absolute confidence, and the actions pertaining to the Williamsburg Bridge incident were no exception. Still, he’d been the one to bring them in; it would be silly to exclude them now. He rather planned on arguing this course of action regardless of what SHIELD said, but informing them first was simply curtesy.

 

  They’d had a response back in less than an hour, smoothly agreeing with his plan and telling him to continue as he wished, and please let us know if you need any further resources.

 

  Honestly, he was beginning to wonder why they were so disliked among the police force. Sure, the stuff they dealt with was batshit insane, but they didn’t cause it anymore that he caused robberies and homicides.

 

  Privately, he thought that the majority of people who mistrusted SHIELD were simply annoyed at being left in the dark. Sure, it was irritating, but it was part of the job. He sure didn’t let every desk sergeant or patrol cop know sensitive details of every little case. And honestly, there were something’s in life you were better off not knowing- he was pretty sure that the SHIELD guys were saving him an epic headache by keeping things need to know.

 

  He’d responded to the offer of resources by asking them how fast they could put out word about a press conference. Less than six hours, as it turned out.

 

* * *

 

 

  “At approximately 9pm last night an incident took place on the Williamsburg Bridge. Much of what occurred is merely speculation at this point. However: several eyewitnesses to the crime as well as our own preliminary have positively placed one individual at the scene. Which is why this morning, I am issuing an arrest warrant for the masked vigilante known as Spiderman.” 

 

* * *

 

 

  Typical. Absolutely typical. Peter had spent _months_ on a revenge vendetta with little bother from the police, and literally the morning after he decided to turn over a new leaf and actually try to help people, he became a wanted criminal.

 

  You see, _this_ was why people became axe-crazy supervillains!

 

  Okay, maybe they had a point. After all, his actions up until this point were hardly completely within the parameters of the law… but still, were they kidding with the timing!

 

  He probably shouldn’t have stormed out, given he was wanting to keep a low profile about the whole ‘superhero’ thing. He was pretty sure he could actually feel Aunt May’s eyes boring holes in his back. Which would actually be pretty useful, because if his Aunt really did have laser eyes he might actually stand a chance of explaining the whole Spider-Power thing. Unfortunately, the laser eye metaphor remained a metaphor. Though at least his back got to remain intact.

 

  When Gwen inevitably cornered him during free period he told her everything. He’d been planning on an edited highlights, but he was still a little unsettled by the news this morning. If he was honest with himself, he was looking for… validation. A conformation from someone who actually still possessed common sense that what he was doing wasn’t so terrible or crazy.

 

  In fact, he’d even brought the spider with him. (Yes, he’d saved the spider. No, it was not a weird thing to do. It was science, museums did it all the time!) Gwen was currently examining it, holding it up to the light for a better view.

 

  “It’s beautiful,” she said. Peter grinned happily. You see, most people were indifferent to insects in glass jars. He may be a wanted fugitive, but at least his girlfriend appreciated science.

 

  “Yeah, it had a bite though!”

 

  “Who else knows about this?”

 

  “Just you.”

 

  Gwen’s eyebrows rose in genuine surprise. “Really?”

 

  There are some thoughts that just come into your head uninvited. The moment you think them, you try to remove them rather forcefully from your head. Sadly, thoughts cannot be undone.

 

  At this point, Peter was currently having one of those thoughts. Namely, that perhaps the daughter of the guy who currently wanted him in a cell was not the best idea for a secret keeper.

 

  Imminently, he dismissed it. This was Gwen, for crying out loud! Besides, she’d had her chance to tell Captain Stacy what she knew whilst he was on the bridge. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “You… you don’t believe what the police are saying, do you?”

 

  “Of course not,” said Gwen, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

 

  Peter relaxed. He believed her; he guessed he’d just needed to hear her say it.

 

  “Does it scare you? What you can do?”

 

  “No.”

 

  If only he could believe himself so easily.

 

  “You’ve got to lay low,” Gwen told him, biting her lip worriedly.

 

  Ah, laying low. That was a nice sentiment. Unfortunately, it was one that had gone out of the window when he decided to use practically day glow red spandex for his cos- uniform. It was a uniform, not a costume!

 

  “Nah, can’t do that,” he said in a pathetic attempt at casual.

 

  “Well, you have to.”

 

  “I can’t.”

 

  “Why not?”

 

   Yes, now he came to think about it, why not? It wasn’t like he was trying to get arrested. Still, deep down he knew why, but he couldn’t even articulate a simple ‘can you pass me a pencil’ around Gwen at the best of time, how was he supposed to explain something he could hardly put into words in his own head?

 

  “Because of last night,” he explained, “That thing that was on the bridge, whatever was attacking them would have killed them. So I’ve got to go after it.”

 

  He saw a slight sense of understanding begin to creep into Gwen’s eyes. “That’s not your job,” she insisted.

 

   _Something only I can give._

 

  “Maybe it is.” 

 

* * *

 

 

  Okay, so he’d just made tracking down the Lizard his job.

 

  Next problem; figure out how in holy hell he was supposed to do said job. It’s not like they had an online career profile for armature superhero.

 

  Okay; lizards. Lizards, lizards. Was the thing even a lizard at all? It was defiantly reptilian, but maybe it was more of a half-man, half-snake? Even if it was a lizard, it hardly narrowed it down. There were hundreds of species of lizards, all with their own strengths and weaknesses. How the heck was he supposed to figure out just what it was?

 

  Okay, think. Reptiles.

 

  For some reason, the word reptiles sent of a niggling feeling in his brain. He had a feeling there was something important about reptiles he needed to remember. Something that had been mentioned recently. Someone had mentioned something about reptiles.

 

  Well, duh. There was a giant lizard on the loose, of course people were talking!

 

  No, before that. Before everything had gone crazy, before his life had turned into a sci-fi feature, something important-

 

  _“I’m the world’s foremost authority on herpetology. That’s reptiles for those of you who don’t know.”_

 

  Yes! Dr Connors! Dr Connors had studied lizards, he’d know their characteristics inside out. Including their weaknesses. Bingo!

 

  Finally, things were looking up.

 

* * *

 

  So, it turned out Dr Connors was the Lizard. Which, Peter was willing to admit, he did not see coming. 

 

  Things were most defiantly looking the opposite of up.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, I used to have a scheduled for this fic. 
> 
> That scheduled is now lying in an unmarked grave in my garden. 
> 
> Sorry.


End file.
